Driving through the outer edges of Kent today, it was a pleasure to see the wildflowers on the verges. For safety reasons, some bits were mown. In the past,I would have considered the edges neglected, but my mind has been rewilded. There are no losers that I can see from letting verges weed up. Less cost for maintenance, better for wildlife.
I've just celebrated the start of June by scything one side of the NMM front grass. It took me all day and I ACHE! Not sure what to do next year... the options are 1) to do the NMM thing again, with mown paths round the edge as we had this year; 2) keep it mown all year for the sake of the neighbours; 3) leave it long from Spring onwards, cutting it down in July, with paths across the middle as well as round the edge. We have a biggish wild flower meadow in the back garden so it's not a straightforward decision. Scything was reasonably effective but slow and ache-making - though it's supposed to be great for your core strength.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Going back to the mind the hedgehog with the strimmer thing ,please also mind the frogs that lurk in the long grass ,can’t tell you how many times OH has almost sliced one up.
I just don't understand the whole idea of it - creating a habitat then destroying it a few weeks later. Why not encourage people just to leave a small area of their lawn all year round? A square/circle in the middle, or a strip down one side. I hate to think of the damage people will be doing with strimmers. The grass in some gardens here is at least a foot tall
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Put like that, it does seem like a pointless idea. Well, it is a pointless idea. I agree that where at all possible people should leave a bit of their garden to go wild or even slightly wild. Lazy gardeners unite! You're helping the environment by doing nothing!
@Fairygirl "Why not encourage people just to leave a small area of their lawn all year round?" Probably because previous attempts have failed. I've just read Ken Thompson's No Nettles Required and he couldn't even persuade people to leave a patch of grass to grow long for a couple of years for an ecological study, never mind permanently! Maybe the organisers are hoping that the results of the Every Flower Counts survey will help change attitudes.
Yeah, you only have to look at hedgehog strimmer injuries to see how damaging the careless strimming of longer grass can be! I certainly love the road verges idea, there's probably far less persuasion required!
I'm a gardener not an ecologist or a botanist...Because of that I want to create a garden I like & I enjoy being in. I'm certainly not about to pander to fads like meadows or 'rewilding'(??) or worrying I've not got a pond or a bee hotel or a bird box or a log pile or my grass is too short etc etc etc... If I was an ecologist or listened to certain TV presenters or read magazine articles 'telling' me what I 'need' or 'have' to do or expecting me to justify what I was doing is sustainable I would let my garden do what it wants & let it turn into that mess that won Best in Show at Chelsea.. (The fact that the RHS choose that instead of Andy Sturgeons, Mind Garden shows just how woke & virtue signalling they've become..but thats an argument for another thread). Rather encouraging the gardening hobby in this country I beginning to think that MSM (in particular) is actually doing the reverse.
I was just standing in the long grass with my older son. A damselfly landed on his t-shirt, probably freshly emerged from the pond. We were watching the bees and butterflies on various flowers, he was learning the names of plants and smelling the herbs. Then we were watering things and playing games with garden stuff. A family have just moved in next door with a kid the same age and he's sat inside watching TV because decking and plastic grass aren't much fun.
No Mow May is a social media hashtag-friendly slogan that's generally meant to raise awareness among people whose idea of gardening is cutting the grass short. Gardeners generally know how they want to maintain their gardens and taking offense because of a campaign that's not really aimed at them is a bit silly in my opinion. But. We now have less than 8 years to reverse the decline of nature in this country according to government targets, and even less if you like to believe scientists instead. Every little helps and sweeping changes to attitudes to nature enhancement in gardens is all part of that.
I completely agree though that the way to do this is by making the changes sustainable in the long term and not just a fad. This means it has to show meaningful results fairly quickly, it has to work with peoples' busy schedules and be easy to maintain, and it has to become part of the recognised and sought after landscape features of gardens in the same way that bowling-green lawns did. This is why I respect the Chelsea judgment for the beaver garden as it's a positive step in that direction.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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In the past,I would have considered the edges neglected, but my mind has been rewilded.
There are no losers that I can see from letting verges weed up. Less cost for maintenance, better for wildlife.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I agree that where at all possible people should leave a bit of their garden to go wild or even slightly wild.
Lazy gardeners unite! You're helping the environment by doing nothing!
Yeah, you only have to look at hedgehog strimmer injuries to see how damaging the careless strimming of longer grass can be! I certainly love the road verges idea, there's probably far less persuasion required!
If I was an ecologist or listened to certain TV presenters or read magazine articles 'telling' me what I 'need' or 'have' to do or expecting me to justify what I was doing is sustainable I would let my garden do what it wants & let it turn into that mess that won Best in Show at Chelsea.. (The fact that the RHS choose that instead of Andy Sturgeons, Mind Garden shows just how woke & virtue signalling they've become..but thats an argument for another thread).
Rather encouraging the gardening hobby in this country I beginning to think that MSM (in particular) is actually doing the reverse.