Residents urged to observe No Mow May

Spring is in the air – are you ready to fire up the lawnmower? The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is hoping you'll think twice about mowing your lawn this May.

According to the NCC, No Mow May is a call to help wild pollinators and other wildlife in greenspaces. Keeping your lawn mower in the shed for the month of May can benefit nature.

By letting flowers bloom on your lawn, including dandelions, you can provide an important source of nectar and pollen for wild bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

Bees and butterflies are the most familiar insect pollinators, while moths, flies, beetles and ants are lesserknown pollinators that still play an important role.

In recent years, there has been a sharp decline in some pollinator populations due to climate change, habitat loss (including the loss of native plants) and pesticides. Many of the fruits we buy or grow in our own gardens, including strawberries, apples and melons, depend on pollination by wild insects.

How can you take part in No-mow May challenge?

Sign our pledge at engage. modl.ca/nomowmay and pledge to leave your mower in the shed from May 1 to 31.

At the end of the month, throw a tennis ball into a patch of your lawn, mark out a square meter with sticks around the ball and count and identify the flowers in that square and then upload your findings to the site.

The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg (MODL) has pledged to protect the biodiversity by not mowing the following parks during the month of May: Miller Point Peace Park, Church Lake Access Site, Indian Falls, Mushamush Beach Park and Wile's Lake Park.

But what about ticks? Recent research has shown that mowing your lawn less often to provide native bees a better habitat won't lead to an increase in disease-carrying ticks.

While blacklegged ticks can be found in some yards, blacklegged ticks need near 100 per cent humidity for at least part of the day and prefer areas with significant leaf litter, not lawns.

In MODL, we will refrain from mowing a number of our parks.

Learn more at engage. modl.ca/nomowmay.