No Mow May proves success

Our grass cutting teams have returned to their usual cutting cycle after a month of participating in #NoMowMay  

You may have noticed that over the last month that the grass in your area may have got a bit longer than usual and perhaps you’ve even seen more wildlife as a result.

Well it wasn’t just because of all the rain that we had. No, for the second successive year, we signed up to the much-applauded No Mow May initiative.

Early this year, we announced that a change to the way we manage our grass which meant that some more areas of grasslands that are of more use to nature than humans would be left to re-wild with grass and flowers allowed to bloom for the sake of the birds and the bees.

We published a map with all the places we'd be leaving and all the places we'd be cutting. We’ve got a plan, and nature’s at the heart of it!

But with No Mow May, we took it one step further and so for the month of May only, our grass-cutters got up to some other exciting activities.

What was No Mow May?

No Mow May is a scheme run by outdoor charity Plantlife which encourages you to do nothing. That’s right – nothing. For the month of May they encourage people to lock up their lawnmowers and let the grass grow! The more grass and flowers, the better for wildlife… and for people, too!

We did our bit by mowing what we call amenity areas, like the Hoe and some of the areas in our many parks and neighbourhoods where we know people like to use for recreation, but left the rest to flourish.

Why did you do this?

Because we want to give nature a real shot in the arm. Our Green Minds project is all about re-wilding and there’s no better thing to start with than the thing we’ve got a lot of: grass.

Longer grass and flowers provide food and homes for pollinating insects like bees and butterflies – and all manner of wildlife, help reduce our total carbon footprint and by the summer, will mean there will be all kinds of wonderful colours and interesting grass species where once there wasn’t.

What about the grass-cutting teams, what have they been up to?

This was one of the best bits… we used the initiative to redeploy staff to areas where ordinarily, there isn't the people power to resource.

Here’s just some of the cool stuff they got up to…

• Worked in partnership with community groups like Clean Our Patch to collect and dispose of rubbish within our Local Nature Reserves
• Cut back footpaths and rights of ways in green spaces and nature reserves
• Additional Tree care – providing some extra watering and care for the 2,000 trees planted through the Plymouth Tree Challenge
• Helped with work at Poole Farm such as tree protection and fencing to continue to establish Derriford Community Park as a place for environmental learning.
• Repaired bins, benches, bridges and all manner of other site furniture on the Hoe and in our nature reserves.

What’s the plan now?

Our grass cutters have now returned to their usual cutting cycle.

Here is a map of our grass cutting cycle. We’re currently working on cycle A – click here