Bored With Manicured Lawns, Some Homeowners Adopt No Mow May All Year Long

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — No Mow May encourages homeowners to stash the lawn mower each spring and let flowers and grass grow for pollinators and water retention. And if your neighbor’s lawn already looks like a wildflower field most of the time, it could be more intentional than passersby might assume.

The movement has expanded to “Let It Bloom June” and the fall version: “Leave the leaves.” Conservation and horticulture groups say year-round low-mowing while selectively leaving native plants to grow can save huge amounts of drinking water and lead to lasting and impactful ecological changes.

When Amanda Beltramini Healan moved into her Nashville ranch house in 2016, the yard had been manicured for sale: a walnut tree, roses from a home improvement store and short grass. So she experimented, first with a 10-by-10-foot patch where she dug up the grass and sowed native seeds. Then she planted goldenrods in the culvert near the street, and let more of her yard grow tall without mowing.