As the late spring sun (finally!) becomes warmer, and the rain-showers clear, many of us take to our gardens in earnest. Drier days have us looking at a long-haired lawn, planning in the chop and neatening up the sides.

This year Yorkshire Wildlife Trust are asking you to stay your hand – or at least adjust your schedule or get creative with design. With over 20 million gardens in the UK, even the smallest grassy patches add up to a significant proportion of our land which, if managed properly, can deliver enormous gains for nature, communities and the climate.

A healthy lawn with some long grass and wildflowers benefits wildlife, tackles pollution and can even lock away carbon below ground.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s top tips for a thriving summer lawn:

• Reduce the frequency of mowing to once every three to four weeks to allow flowers such as dandelion and speedwell to bloom and help pollinators. Dead-heading the daisies and dandelions will encourage them to come again, providing much needed nectar alongside plants like clover for our struggling bees and butterflies.
• Keep some areas short as pathways, sunbathing spots, and foraging areas for worm-eating birds. For the rest, let the grass grow a little longer, offering shelter to grasshoppers and other insects. In turn, these creatures are food for frogs, birds, and bats.
• Allow parts of your lawn to grow long for the whole summer, and mow on a high setting so that caterpillars can feed and transform into butterflies and moths.
• Turn a blind eye to the odd bare patch within a lawn as these provide sites for ground nesting bees.

If you’re ready to take a bigger step, try cultivating a meadow across part of your lawn. This has the benefit of providing a riot of colour for you to enjoy, less grass for you to mow, and a vital supply of food for your local pollinators. You can even create one if you don’t have a lawn – meadows in pots are just as lovely!

If your soil fertility is too high for perennial wildflowers to flourish, consider sowing a cornfield annual mix that includes plants like cornflower, corn poppy, corn marigold and corncockle, with some barley and wheat seed to add an authentic touch.

If you want to go the whole distance, consider applying for our Wildlife Gardening Award. We’ve awarded over 200 gardens since the start of March with a badge of honour for their wildlife-friendly gardening; from care homes to community gardens and from terraced back gardens to large estates. Keeping your lawn long and having a patch of wildflowers fulfils several of the criteria – so why not take a look and see what you can do to help your local wildlife?

You can apply for the award at: https://www.ywt.org.uk/Wildlife-Gardening-Award

Here is what Project Officer for Wyke Beck Valley, Sarah Shorter had to say when we spoke to her at the end of last month:

"Join me in #NoMowMay!

It’s the first time I have been able to get involved and do this as I now have a garden which has grassy areas.

Why not join me in registering a small area of you garden in No Mow May in order to support feeding the pollinators and discover what your lawn beholds without being mown! Whether it be a strip of grass you leave, some of your plant pots un weeded, or your whole lawn, have a go!

You can register with Plantlife to join the movement here.

I have even had a go at painting my own sign ready to put up so my neighbours know what I’m doing and why!

I plan on giving my lawn a mow and a rake this weekend to start off the process. This is good management practice for wildflower areas as it allows the wildflowers chance to grow and compete with the grass that has flourished in the some of the sunny weather we have had recently.

Grass grows faster and earlier in the year than wildflowers and this makes them a dominant species so a mow at this time should help with some of the competition. I will then rake off all the arisings to clear the way for new growth before leaving it for the month of May!

I would love to see some of your pictures too if you plan on giving it a go for the good of nature. You might be surprised to see what you have in your lawn and even the grass flower heads are beautiful to see as we don’t usually give them chance to flower!"