The Bee Kind Challenge Step 2
Letting your grass grow and making your own mini-meadow at home.
You don’t need to be a beekeeper to help keep bees. If you have a garden one of the simplest steps you can take to support wildlife is to let the grass grow, even a bit.
Why is it so important to let your grass grow? Because we have lost a staggering 97% of wildflower meadows since the 1930’s meaning that gardens and local council land are crucial for nature. In fact they cover more space than all UK nature reserves put together.
When you mow less often wildflowers in your lawn, including daisies, clover and selfheal have a chance to flower and provide a huge nectar boost for bees and other pollinators.
Wildflower charity Plantlife Uk are encouraging less mowing, and researching the results with their Every Flower Counts campaign which has come up with some interesting statistics.
The top three lawn flowers are daisies, white clover and selfheal. Flower and nectar production is highest in lawns cut once every 4 weeks, in fact this boosted nectar production tenfold giving ‘short-grass’ plants like daisies a chance to flower in profusion.
A Bumblebee having a wonderful time feeding off clover in grass that is only a few inches long.
This means you can help pollinators and increase the nectar supply of your garden without needing to let your grass grow really long - cutting it once every four weeks to a height of approximately 5 cms allows for a profusion of daisies but grass that you can still walk on. Your wild flower meadow can genuinely be a mini meadow growing only a few inches tall but packing a nectar punch nonetheless.
Encouraging bees to feed on clover in your lawn while you put your feet up sounds rather lovely but there are a few things to consider before you put the lawnmower away. If your lawn is a play space, if children are used to running around on it in bare feet, if it’s next to the barbecue and the place where you all like to relax then this is not the best place to encourage bees. Bees don’t want to sting humans, they want to find the next flower, but if trodden on or sat on they might resort to a sting.
Perhaps there is a part of your lawn that can be safely left to grow longer grass? Or perhaps you have a front lawn that could be loaned to the bees. Even a small wild patch of grass will help.
Buttercups growing alongside ox-eye daisies, borage, welsh poppies and hollyhocks, all in a space that is less than 1 square meter in our back garden.
If you don’t have a lawn yourself but would like to encourage pollinators why not write to your local council and ask them to let the grass grow on council land, or follow the example of Leicester City Council which is planting wildflowers on bus stops and calling them bee stops?
Looking at flowers positively impacts our mood and helps to lower stress, see the bee kind challenge step one, providing you with an additional benefit to letting your grass grow.
Spending time in nature is shown to have a similar positive effect on our mental well-being so if you don’t have a lawn head out to your local park and maybe write to your local council and ask them to plant flowers for well-bee-ing.