No Mow April?

Well, I officially made it to April 16 without mowing the grass. Careful consideration of the existing state of my lawn that day, plus the forecast for heavy rain over the next couple of days, led me to calculate that if I let it go any longer, my old mower would not be able to bite off — let alone chew — the resulting jungle of grass, weeds and whatever else would be growing there. And I don’t own a machete.

So I mowed, over a couple of days. And now it looks like I need to mow again.

That means I only made it a little more than halfway through “No Mow April,” a conservation strategy designed to support bees and other pollinators. The “No Mow April” initiative encourages homeowners to hold off on mowing their lawns during the month of April, allowing the dandelions, violets and clover to grow freely. Those wildflowers and others provide key nutrients to pollinators like bees and butterflies, according to Plantlife, a U.K. organization that is credited with beginning the “No Mow” initiative. (In the U.K., which is at a higher latitude than where I am [St. Louis], spring comes later, so the slogan there is “No Mow May.”)

Here in the U.S., a number of communities have taken up the concept and promote it locally. The town of Webster Groves, Mo., where I grew up and next door to where I now live, is notably conservation-focused and pushes the initiative, suspending its mowing ordinance for the month and suggesting that residents pledge to provide nest sites, grow pollinator-friendly plants and avoid using pesticides in their yards. The city  provides “No Mow April” yard signs that stick up above the weeds in yards of residents taking part in the initiative. The city also restricts its own mowing of public areas during the month.

For my part, though, I just couldn’t let it go. My front yard is primarily zoysia, which comes up fearfully dense. And the back yard is a hodgepodge of different weedy grasses, or grassy weeds, areas of which I swear added three inches overnight last week. If I didn’t mow when I did, we would have had to burn it off.

I’ll do this for the pollinators, though: I won’t be putting out any chemicals in my yard to kill weeds or pests or whatever, or to fertilize the grass. I think the ideal uniform clean-green lawn is vastly overrated and I’m content with a more natural, un-fussed-over look. And I’ll be planting some zinnias and other flowers in front of the house soon, which should make the bees and butterflies very happy by early summer.

So, no “No Mow April” for me this year. And frankly, given the state of our climate in recent years, it feels like that concept may be passé. For our latitude, it seems increasingly unlikely that we can go through the whole month of April without cutting the grass. My grandchildren, by the time they’re homeowners, will be probably be talking about “No Mow March.”