Reasons to cut back on mowing your lawn

As we enter the lawnmowing season in earnest, this month, our thoughts are mixed about this time-honored activity. A reader recently told me about an idea that may be of interest to some of you. I guess it would be best described as a “conservation practice” that is intended to encourage and increase the population of pollinating insects by allowing grassy plants and non-grass plants that are growing in your lawn to flower and go to seed.

I have observed that for some people, particularly some weekend or seasonal residents, having and maintaining a large lawn is one of the main reasons why they own property here. City dwellers living in apartments surrounded by other people and also confined by concrete, often long for open space to enjoy. I know of several people whose greatest joy is driving upstate from New Jersey each weekend solely to ride their garden tractor and mow acres of grass.

Lawns evolved partially as a way to improve one’s view of surrounding areas in order to better watch out for predators or the bad guys who may be about to attack at any moment. Lawns also served as “commons” where people could gather to exchange goods, socialize and play.

It’s pretty much impossible to play baseball, football, soccer, tennis, rugby, cricket, or many other sports in a forest. Perhaps the highest evolution of lawns as play areas is exemplified by golf. Golf fairways, roughs, and especially greens are among the most intensely maintained places where plants are intentionally grown, for any purpose. I am not a golfer myself, but I do appreciate the aesthetic appeal of well-maintained golf courses. Greene County has at least seven golf courses and these recreational businesses certainly contribute to our economy.

But for many people, including myself, mowing the lawn is not fun at all! I wish I could convert my entire lawn to the lowgrowing wild thyme that occupies only a small portion of it right now. I love the smell of the thyme as well as its pretty pink flowers and it never needs to be mowed! I have been unable to get it to spread despite my best efforts to kill the grass nearby. It is quickly outcompeted by dandelions and other plants that I consider weeds. I will also admit that I like the smell of a freshly mowed lawn and the uniform neatness of the mowed area is appealing to my German nature. Some suburban communities may require residents to maintain a lawn whether they want to or not. Such is the price some people choose to pay for living in suburbia!

Grass plants react to being mowed by growing new shoots. Their growing point is located at the base of the shoot and cutting off the top of the blade does them no harm. This gives them a distinct advantage over non-grass plants that have their growing points at the top of the plant. When newly arrived city dwellers asked me how they could cultivate a large lawn, from the fields surrounding them, my advice was simple. Just mow it.

Allowing grasses to grow and produce seed may not immediately provide a sequence of lovely wildflowers, as some people may envision. Grass flowers, in general, are not all that exciting to look at —at least not at first. But eventually, broad-leaved plants will replace the grasses and produce some interesting flowers. These flowers will also produce pollen and provide food and habitat for pollinating insects, which, by most accounts, are declining drastically in recent years. Hence, conservation of a valuable natural resource is a positive ecological service that you can perform by doing nothing!

This May, I suggest you try to refrain from mowing at least some of your lawn just to see what happens. There are some potential downsides to this experiment, from scowling neighbors who disapprove of the appearance to possibly allowing some nasty, invasive plants, such as Japanese stilt grass, to proliferate and spread. I have no idea if allowing plants to flower will increase allergies in sensitive people. Tall weeds are also far more conducive to harboring deer ticks, as well as pollinators. Mowed lawns harbor no deer ticks whatsoever.

You might consider “event mowing” in which you mow only a few times each season, thus preventing the lawn from reverting to brush to trees, eventually. If you decide to participate in “nomow May” at any level, I would like to hear from you about your experience. There is no question that refraining from using lawn fertilizers, weed killers, soil insecticides and other lawn care chemicals is a good idea in general from an environmental perspective.