HARRY WALLOP joined 5 million in letting their grass grow for a month

HARRY WALLOP joined five million in letting their grass grow for a whole month and concludes… Oh the joy of saying good riddance to No Mow May and rescuing my VERY shaggy lawn!

How do I know that I am a true-born Englishman? It is not my fondness for Kentish ale nor that my heart races at the sound of leather on willow. It is the fact that I love my lawn more than my children.

Of course, I love my four kids; I am not completely heartless. But when it comes to allowing them to kick around a football, or even play a gentle game of tag on my precious plot — there’s no contest. The lawn wins.

Standing in my garden, looking out over my small patch of well-tended, neat grass, I feel at peace. An Englishman’s home may be his castle, but his lawn is his moat.

Which is why the idea of ‘No Mow May’ filled me with a stone-cold horror.

The concept, embraced by more than five million gardeners around the country, has been promoted by a wildlife charity called Plantlife. Its mission is very simple: during May, the most fertile month of the year, you do not mow your lawn.

‘The idea is that we should re-imagine the lawn, which may sound radical,’ explains Mark Schofield at the charity. ‘We want lawns to be places where we rekindle nature.’

Harry Wallop says the idea of No Mow May ‘filled me with a stone-cold horror’. He is pictured in his garden before he went an entire month without mowing the grass

Not only is the grass allowed to grow, but so, too, the dandelions, daisies and clover, thereby giving sustenance to a host of insects that rely on the flowers that these weeds produce.

Should we even call them weeds? No Mow May has thrown fuel on a fire that has been smouldering in horticulture for a few years now. In one camp are the traditionalists, including Alan Titchmarsh, who believe gardening is about controlling nature, about using plants to create a landscape, vegetable patch, flower bed or lawn for all of us to enjoy — birds, bugs and butterflies certainly, but man, too.

In the other camp are the likes of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which increasingly believes that man is the problem. Gardeners, with their pesticides, decking and desire for a neat lawn are to blame for wrecking the precious ecosystem as much as jumbo jets and coal mines.

Last month, at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, not a single one of the show gardens included a lawn.

Well, of course, I want my garden to be a haven for the birds, butterflies and bees that visit, as well as the bats that — remarkably — frequently swoop across my North London lawn at dusk and need bugs to eat.

But I like my lawn. So much so that I paid £1,000 last year to have it relaid. We have lived in our terraced house for 15 years, and in that time, the lawn — which is just 15ft by 15ft — has been under almost continual attack from four growing children with a succession of paddling pools, games of badminton, snowmen building and barbecuing.

And then along came a lockdown puppy, who proceeded to turn the ragged, paltry lawn into Flanders after the first day of the Battle of the Somme. I gave up even trying to repair it.

Last November, however, with the dog having grown out of digging for imaginary bones and the children now teenagers, keener on lounging about than kicking a ball, I decided to act. New turf was laid.

In the following months, I regularly and anxiously inspected it, shouting at any exuberant dogs or children who dared to threaten my pride and joy.

Once spring arrived, it looked fabulous, especially following a mow with my little Flymo.

Then came No Mow May. In the first few days, I paced up and down spotting tiny shoots of dandelion or clover, and like an over-anxious parent I gently picked them out of the soil. I realise this was not in the spirit of the project, but the urge was too strong. Sorry.

The grass grew remarkably quickly. Within a week it was at least four inches, or up to Richard I on my British history ruler. I admit it was quite freeing not having to get out the mower — 30 minutes of my Saturday freed up to read the paper and have another cup of coffee.

By week two I had learned to live with the weeds — not that there were all that many. By week three I was almost disappointed with the lack of buttercups and daisies; all I had was long, lush grass.

Some experts believe that No Mow May has its limitations.

The concept, embraced by more than five million gardeners around the country, has been promoted by a wildlife charity called Plantlife. Its mission is very simple: during May, the most fertile month of the year, you do not mow your lawn’. Mr Wallop is pictured after No Mow May

David Hedges-Gower is the chairman of the Lawn Association, which helps promote best practice in lawn growing. ‘No Mow May is a wonderful idea; I am a million per cent behind it. But it’s not for everyone and it won’t work in every garden,’ he says.

He argues that allowing some weeds to flourish is important — this is something he does in his garden in Oxfordshire — but it will only work if your grass is native grass. Any lawn that has been in situ since the 1950s or before is almost certainly native.

‘But nearly all the grass we sell in the UK is now what we call a hard-wearing dwarf ryegrass.’ This was especially bred for lawns, Hedges-Gower explains.

‘It is not native. If you have had your lawn turfed, or you have used some seed from the garden centre, it is most probably that.

‘It’s just a single plant. It germinates quickly and it looks great, but it’s a bit of a con.’ A con? Yes, he insists. It does one thing — and only one thing — well: it grows upwards. He says native grasses, in contrast, are amazingly resilient, growing sideways and filling in the gaps. They can easily grow in harmony with weeds, too.

When you mow your lawn, if it is native, you encourage more growth in your grass. But my new lawn, like most new lawns, is not native. Once the weeds get in, they take over.

‘You are doomed,’ Hedges-Gower says. ‘On a ryegrass lawn, everything is leaning to your lawn failing if you do No Mow May.’

My worst fears were confirmed — 31 days to help nature could cause my expensive lawn to become choked up by weeds.

Luckily, by the end of the month all I had was long, straggly grass and hardly any weeds. On my history ruler the grass reached a foot high, up to Charles III.

In any case, shouldn’t we be cherishing nature all year round, not just in May?

Mark Schofield at Plantlife admits the charity’s aim is for gardeners to abandon part of their lawns permanently, leaving food and a habitat for insects for 365 days a year. ‘You don’t want the banquet to be temporary. Think about what you can leave for longer, so that you can throw a lifeline to nature.’

If I had an extensive garden, even one just 30ft long, I would consider leaving a strip to grow into a meadow, long enough for all the crickets and moths that need shelter.

But mine is really quite small. I have pots on my patio with lavender. I have a pile of rotting logs by my compost bin for bugs to make a home in. I do my bit, but I am with Alan Titchmarsh — there’s no shame in wanting to nurture and protect your blessed plot.

So, I am not sure I will repeat No Mow May next year. I just ended up with a very shaggy lawn, not the beautiful wildflower meadow Plantlife’s website suggested I might achieve.

But I enjoyed a month of not getting the mower out, and I have learnt to look at dandelions, clover and daisies in a more appreciative way. If they were to make a small incursion into my precious patch of green, I might even resist the urge to pick them out.

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