Is the Jordan front lawn part of the No Mow May movement. This movement was started in Britain in 2019 by the U.K. conservation charity Plantlife. The movement has grown to include thousands of lawns in the U.K. in 2021, and the charity’s head of participation Felicity Harris said 2022 is expected to be the biggest year yet.
The campaign is gaining steam in Canada, as municipalities and environmental activism groups across the country champion the cause. The movement is rooted in research: several studies show that less frequent mowing can be a boon for biodiversity. Findings from the U.K. suggest that allowing plants to flower in May can create enough nectar to support ten times more pollinators. A 2018 study from Massachusetts found tremendous rise in abundance and diversity of bees in lawns that are mowed every second week instead of every week.
“People want to do things to help, and No Mow May is an easy thing to pick up,” said Ms. Knight, “but I think it’s more of a feel-good initiative than a helpful one. We need to do more than just not mowing – first and foremost: planting native.” So let's draw our attention here in Ontario to the lawn campaigns. First and foremost is the Dandelion - we love and hate them in the lawns. We see campaigns to save the Dandelions. However, they are not considered great contributors to bees. Their pollen is not the first, the ideal, mor most nutritious food that bees look for.
What about Creeping Charlie? It is all over our lawns (especially mine). Creeping Charlie has an ok pollen count. One of its characteristics is a strategy called "Lucky Hits" where one flower out of many will have much more pollen/nectar. A U.K. researcher (Southwick et al. 1981) found that bees foraging on Creeping Charlie for 5.9 minutes obtained enough nectar from the flowers to make foraging on Creeping Charlie energetically profitable. Something tells me that it isn't a significant contributor - I just don't see bees in the lawn on the Creeping Charlie.
Bees need a variety of food sources, and the best lawns have many kinds of flowers, hopefully with a range of bloom times. The flowers recommended for the bee-friendly lawn include English daisies, Speedwell (Veronica) Buttercup, Clover, wild Violets, Thyme and Chamomile.
That makes me think of the realm of the English Cottage Garden. It seems to me that the Jordan lawn is pretty, but not really a "no mow" poster child garden. Even Randolph's naturalistic lawn around the corner needs more variety of flowers.
What do you think? | 
