This month is “No Mow May,” during which you are encouraged to abstain from mowing your lawn for the duration of the month.
“No Mow May” is part of rewilding, a conservation approach that aims to restore ecosystems to a more natural state by allowing natural processes to shape them.
Rewilding goes beyond simply protecting existing habitats; it actively works to restore degraded landscapes and introduce missing species (including apex predators) to re-establish natural ecological functions.
How to rewild your garden
While rewilding projects exist on different scales (we recommend reading The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small by Isabella Tree, or watching the Wilding movie, about Knepp, a trailblazing 3,500-acre rewilding project in West Sussex), you can even do rewilding on a very small patch of land (in fact, even in as little as a pot or a small flower bed!)
Embrace “weeds”:
Besides abstaining from mowing your lawn, there are other ways you can help rewild your garden.
Don’t be so quick to pull up all the “weeds.” Some are beneficial to wildlife and can add to the overall biodiversity of your garden.
Leave fallen leaves and branches:
Allow these natural elements to decompose and enrich the soil, providing food and shelter for insects and other creatures.
Reduce or eliminate chemical use:
Avoid using pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers, as they can harm beneficial insects and disrupt the natural ecosystem.
Build a pond:
A pond can attract a wide variety of wildlife, including amphibians, insects, and birds, and can be helpful to animals and insects in hot weather. Alternatively, (or on top of creating a pond), you can provide bird baths, water bowls for pets, and other water sources to help animals stay hydrated. Observing birds taking baths can be lots of fun! Just make sure to change the water in the baths regularly. Find more helpful tips on How to Provide Water for Wildlife here.
Create wildlife corridors:
Allow wild animals, such as hedgehogs, to move freely through your garden by creating gaps in fences or walls.
Provide nesting and shelter:
Install birdhouses, bug hotels, or log piles to provide homes and shelter for various creatures, including different species of insects. You can then see what species you can detect, which can be a fun activity for the whole family! You can also learn more about different animal species in your area, including how to identify them and their needs. This can foster a better understanding of your environment and bring you closer to nature, while helping to preserve it.
Provide food sources:
Plant native plants, flowers, and shrubs that provide food for pollinators and other wildlife. You can do prior research on local native plants – there are often books on native wild plants and animals available from local libraries. This can make a great educational project – both for yourself and for your kids!
Observe your garden:
When you start implementing some of the above practices, you might start seeing changes happening in your garden even within days or weeks. Indeed, nature seems to find a way whenever we let it be. When you start rewilding your garden, pay attention to the changes every day. You can pick a time during the day to sit outside with a cup of tea and enjoy observing animal activity or plants growing. Or you can simply notice colours, shapes, and sounds.
Also, see how observing your garden makes you feel. Do you notice anything interesting? You can even keep a logbook to keep track of what you notice in your garden on a day-to-day basis. Seeing changes over time (and keeping note of them) can be very rewarding and inspire you (as well as others, if you feel like sharing your observations) to continue/start new rewilding projects.
While you might start with only one or a few of the items on the list above, if you continue with it over time, you might see drastic changes happening. And if you are unsure if rewilding is for your garden or not, you can simply give a “No Mow May” (or any other suggestion) a go – you might be surprised at the results!