Want to support your neighbourhood bees, butterflies and bugs? Consider leaving the lawnmower in the shed this spring
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November heralds the ritualistic putting away of safety razors for Movember, as Aussie men let their moustaches grow. The same principle might be applied to the garden clippers or lawnmower as well.
A No-mow-vember, if you will.
Taking a leaf out of Britain’s book, where No Mow May takes place at the peak of the northern hemisphere spring, Australians can give their back yard pollinators a helping hand by letting their lawns grow longer, turning them into a blooming smorgasbord of nectars and pollens.
Plantlife cites the loss of 97% of the UK’s flower-rich meadows in almost a century as a motivator for No Mow May. For Britons, it’s an opportunity to take a step towards improving back yard ecosystems, with even a small patch of unshorn lawn having the potential to help insects thrive.
A similarly mindful approach to back yard maintenance can maximise pollinator potential in Australia, where just under half of people are unaware that most of the continent’s forests, swamps and grasslands have disappeared since colonisation.
A little world in your garden patch
Native and introduced bees, butterflies, moths, spiders, cockroaches and wasps are all vital pollinators in back yard food webs, but they’re not just helping plant reproduction as they fly, flutter and crawl from flower to flower.
“They’re also doing things that you wouldn’t even imagine,” says Dr Scarlett Howard, a bee researcher at Monash University’s school of biological sciences.
“Keeping the soils healthy, feeding other animals in the food web, all these sorts of things pollinators are doing that we wouldn’t realise.”
As well as saving on household labour, the No Mow mindset might have other unanticipated benefits. Though many lawn grasses are introduced species, even letting some weedy plants grow to blossom might provide native and introduced insects a tasty meal.
“Even though they might not look that nice, you will actually find a lot of native pollinators on them too,” Howard says. “Weeds aren’t necessarily a bad thing”.
Dr Kit Prendergast, also a bee researcher, at Murdoch University, says Australian back yards might benefit from a varied approach to mowing – where strips of lawn are left to grow long.
That’s because different insects may draw different benefits from varying lawn length. Native bees, for instance, are ground burrowers, so a close shave could give better access to suitable terrain for them to scratch out their homes.
“Have patches of bare sand,” says Prendergast, who points to native bee species such as the sweat bee (Lasioglossum dotatum) – which likes “nesting in sand between lawns” – and the feathery leioproctus bee (Leioproctus plumosus), which nests “in patches of bare ground, in and amongst lawns”.
“Maybe have the borders not mown,” Prendergast says, “So you’ve got long strands of grass that butterflies can lay their eggs on, you’ve also got native bees where the males roost on long blades of grass and messy vegetation.”
Birds, which also provide pollination services, often prefer an untidy garden. Instead of sweeping up or blowing away the leaves, twigs or bark, leave some to accumulate as habitat or nest-building materials.
Messy lawns, all year round
Australia doesn’t dedicate a single No Mow month, and it may not need to.
Mark Cairns, chief biodiversity officer at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife (FNPW) says the UK’s extremely seasonal climate lends itself to promoting a laissez-faire approach to mowing for a single spring month. But it’s a different story for Australia.
“We actually have an opportunity to do more,” he says, pointing to plants and trees that flower in winter as one example that “a whole range of species are extremely dependent on”.
He also says the No Mow movement is already in Australia, “not under one brand or package” but woven through other initiatives.
Biodiversity Month, which falls in September, promotes a thoughtful approach to habitat creation, weeding, responsible pet ownership, recycling and composting.
Then there’s the World’s Ugliest Lawn competition, a bastion of non-interventionist gardening that promotes complex back yard environments to support ecological diversity.
FNPW also operates Backyard Buddies, a long-running education site for Australians to learn about the plants and wildlife that live among their homes.
“A lot of the stuff [a gardener can do] is really simple,” Cairns says, “and providing it’s of reasonable quality, and a little bit of thought process [goes into it], actually has significant traction for improving biodiversity.”
Pollinator-maxxing
In Australia, pollinator-maxxing your yard goes beyond parking the mower.
“We should be trying to replicate what was here originally,” Prendergast says.
She and Howard say any opportunity to retain and enhance “remnant bushland” – native plants and trees already on your property – is the best bet for healthy insect habitat.
Howard suggests “planting diverse native plants from the local area and … choosing those flowers that should be in that environment.
“That will feed the native local pollinators in your area.”
As well as keeping ground exposed for burrowing native bee access – that means avoiding mulching, plastic coverings, artificial lawn and concrete – she cautions against pesticides.
“Those not only impact the pollinators landing on the flowers, but it also gets into the groundwater systems,” Howard says. “If you are a ground-nesting insect … you get a dose of pesticides landing on flowers that have been sprayed, but you also get the water run-off when it rains into your burrow.”
