Lawn mowing frequency affects bee abundance and diversity (2018)
The previous owner of my house was maintening a picture perfect green. With the kids and the jobs, I didn't want to follow that practice. Too much time for a soil not made for this, lots of fertilizer, various chemicals...
I fix the dead patches every spring and autumn with clover seeds and compost made from grass clippings, egg shells and vegetables/fruits peels. Zero fertilizer or weed killers, I remove by hand the weeds I don't like once in a while. I rake the garden twice a year to keep moss under control.
5 years later, our garden no longer looks like a green, but a prairie with the usual local plants. Since 2 years poppies are colonizing the most sun exposed parts, with spectacular blooms we are eagerly waiting for. Worms, larvae, slugs and snails are plenty, so birds are always at work foraging. Whatever dies during the hottest weeks regenerates in autumn. Plenty of bees are foraging the clovers and bindweed flowers.
It's looks nice, it's alive, it's much less work and money to maintain, it's self regenerating.
Last year I mowed only 2 or 3 times in the whole year because my automower died and I wanted to try what happens. The increase in insects and birds was incredible. I therefore do not repair or replace the mower. Instead I only regularly mow paths through the garden so I can walk through it and a "central place" where I really need and use low grass. Only 2 or 3 times a year I mow all of the garden with the scythe.
Also stop using herbicide and plant some clover. My neighbors hate me but I (and the bees, bunnies, and other critters) love my almost white lawn in July. It smells great, and the clover keeps the grass healthy.
Maybe I have slow growing grass. I mow every three weeks, and I feel like my neighbors do it every two. I thought weekly mowing was something mostly only seen in fictional portrayals of American fathers.
I don't understand why a lot of people have a lawn in the first place, most don't even use the lawn (besides mowing it on a regular basis hahaha)!
I noticed the last couple seasons that certain parts of the lawn by the curb were really active with pollinating bees. I stopped mowing that area, much to the chagrin of the city who warned me (there’s a blue law it must be shorter than 10 inches).
So now, I don’t mow that part until they warn me, then I’ll trim it with a weed trimmer but leave some clusters here and there.
I am based in the UK and I cut the "grass" every 6 weeks in the spring and summer. I have severe hay fever and I only mow the grass after a good bout of rain, otherwise I get quite a severe reaction. My neighbor does religiously mow every week in the spring and summer season.
I have found my green carpet to be a lot more drought resistant than my neighbours perfect lawn, and the biodiversity attracts more bees, toads and other insects. However, I appreciate many would class the biodiversity as weeds (moss, clover dandelion, daisies).
It would also cut the number of interrupted Zoom meetings due to noise pollution in half.
Personally, I'd love to just get rid of most or at least part of my lawn and replace with growing food, like Rob Greenfield. anyone interested in turning their lawn into a food growing yard, should check out his work: https://www.robgreenfield.org/
Regardless of whether I mowed 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 times per week, my lawn already has no “lawn flowers”, aka weeds.
We keep some milkweed along one fence and have a bed of local wildflowers along the roadway and a vegetable garden for the bees, but this article is about increasing lawn flowers/weeds rather than directly about mowing frequency.
"I can't mow this week wife, think of the bees." Thanks science.
My lawn would be so long if I mowed every other week. It would also be extremely bad for my lawn (fescue with KBG and rye).
I mow about twice a week and keep my lawn at 3” - 4”. I like it a bit longer.
If I let it grow for 2 weeks I’d be chopping off 50% or more of its length which puts the lawn under so much stress. It would be wide open for disease and it would actually be wasting water.
"Mowing less frequently [than 3 weeks] is practical,"
Not in all areas. Some grasses grow much more quickly, especially in warmer areas. Many areas require a lower mow to inhibit mosquito reproduction. Every 2 weeks tends to work well for my lawn.
One thing i personally noticed and wanted to ask someone who might know (perhaps they are reading this)
Does the abundance of color in the modern world harm bees in any way? I ask this because I've seen bees repeatedly fly into modern packaging, signage and bright clothing. I can imagine that the wasted energy flying into a sign that is as colorful as a flower harms bees.
But I'm not sure if there's studies on this or if it is even a big deal. So opportunistically asking here in this semi related thread to see if others have thought about this.
In my neighborhood, green lawns are frowned upon and most yards are left unmowed for the duration of the summer. Some are mowed infrequently for insurance reasons. Others are mowed frequently. It's grown on me and now I find the diverse array of wildflowers and grasses to a mowed yard. As a result, I've progressively become more curious about the results of different lawn maintenance strategies. Here what I've observed: (1) Many plants seem to require their seeds to stay on the plant until late autumn to effectively reproduce. Mowing, even if only in the late summer, seems to disrupt the overall plant diversity. Unmowed lawns have the most diversity. (2) Invasive plant species thrive because they are able to colonize recently disturbed soil most quickly, crowding out other species. They are incredibly effective at colonizing infrequently mowed yards. The unmowed yards have the least number of invasive plants. (3) Native species seems to be far more drought resistant than grass. They maintain a green appearance long after the grass has turned brown. (4) Bees are far more plentiful around large flowering plants which have been allowed to grow in unmowed yards than the clover found in infrequently mowed yards.
I let my 3 acres go fallow for the last few years (half an acre I mow so my kids can play and not come out covered in ticks).
I wondered if it was helping a lot until I took a few walks in the grass and nesting birds were startled by my presence (I let them be after I knew where they were!). I don't think they'd had the chance to nest there when it was being cut for silage.
CHECK THIS OUT!
This is happening in my front yard literally as I type this!
The colony in my tree is electing a new Queen. Last week half the colony left with the old queen - and a bee-keeper noticed they were all bunched up in the yard and brought a hive and harvested them off the lawn. (Ill ad pics of that later)
I havent needed to mow the lawn in months, and this literally just happened in the last 30 mins as I returned to costco...
Listen with audio they are swarming like mad!
https://imgur.com/gallery/2nnZBy4
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What was crazy is I read this article this AM before heading to errands, and then I came home to this!
And I was recognizing the hive was there, and I was recognizing I havent mowed in months! and I planted a crap-ton of bee friendly stuff in the yard last summer...
It also increases angry letters from the HOA by 200%
Lawn services work on a schedule. I'm not so sure that's as true as home owners who mow their own.
I (DIY home owner) don't schedule, I mow on demand. That said, if the lawn gets too long our electric mower struggles.
Finally, wouldn't longer grass also be a better environment for ticks? Don't get me wrong, bees are important. But grass length has been a constant, and while this information is helpful it's not doing much to address root cause (without that its influence could get worse).
Anyone look into how the noise might affect insects/animals? Personally, nothing ruins my day more than hearing a lawn mower starting on a quiet morning or afternoon.
We kept batches of flowering grass in our garden for bees.
Would someone with access say how short they were mowing?
Now here’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make!
I really dislike mowing in general, so mow as little as possible. Yes, I have the worst looking lawn on the block, but I also now have less grass and more diversity in "weedy" plants. My quote is "if I wanted to be a land lord, I would move to England" when asked about my lawn.
I hate mowing the lawn. I might do it once a month. Glad to see confirmation of how great my laziness is!
I need to show this article to HOA.
Wait, what? Weekly mowing? What the hell? Who does that? This sounds absolutely disastrous for grass and its ecosystem. I don't see a reason to mow more than a few times per year.
Only reason I mow is because it reduces the chance of the neighbors cat shitting in my yard. Otherwise I would have a beautiful Meadow.
I'm actually building a DIY lawncare app right now. One of the features is having the right frequency of mowing depending on how much rain & fertilizer product plan you follow.
It would mean a lot to me if you took a quick survey so I could understand if there's value in the idea:
Not mowing at all works even better
We’d have bee abundance if there are less lawns.
Bees love me. My neighbors don't! :)
Sweet, now I can say that I am doing it for mother earth instead of admitting that I am too lazy to do it every weekend.
Lawn mowing is among the top most useless energy wasting human activities. It's noisy (of course nobody syncs with neighbours to mow so you can be sure to hear mowing noise every day), polluting, and so fucking useless.
Also increases the mosquito population :/
I have always wanted to allow more lawn growth to create room for insect and animals to thrive, and to replace the invasive grasses that are so common in my state with local clover and creeping thyme ground cover but I have been surprised at the level of resistance this has been met with by landlords and nosy neighbors. Keeping a "neat and tidy" yard is one of those weird cultural values in the US that was born from misguided beliefs about patriotism and is rooted in classist ideas.
Even the idea of dandelions being "weeds" is ridiculous as the dandelion is an incredibly useful plant that can be used in a variety of circumstances. I really suggest that anyone interested in these topics check out a book called Lawn People How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.
