No Mow Maybe Not

I don't know who started the No-Mow May meme, but in general, it is not a good idea. My lawn is treated, mostly organically, so if I didn't mow, I would have foot-tall grass by now, as I have mowed four times already this season. And the non-grass spring plants that grew there before were mostly dandelions, which as you can read below, are not a good thing. (These quotes came to me via the Riverview Native Nursery newsletter that I receive by email.)

Rewilding Magazine: "...here’s what the little research done to date on dandelions tells us. Dandelion has allelopathic pollen, a scientific term that basically means the pollen of dandelions can reduce reproductive success in native wildflowers, disrupting the native plant communities it invades. Another study showed that queen bumblebees (some of the early emerging wild bees that pro-dandelion campaigns say dandelions help) resorted to eating their own eggs when fed a diet of protein-deficient dandelion pollen."
Benjamin Vogt of Monarch Gardens: "What you WILL get are a host of plants with marginal to little benefit to wildlife, and several that will be terribly aggressive: crabgrass, creeping charlie, barnyard grass. And of course invasive species placed on most city’s noxious weed list, like musk thistle or garlic mustard."
The Garden Professors: " Even better yet, you can reduce the amount of space in your landscape that is dedicated to a traditional turfgrass lawn and incorporate a flowering groundcover and/or a pollinator garden that hosts an abundant array of diverse floral resources that provide food for bees all season long!"
Iowa State: "Consider eliminating the lawn altogether and replacing it with plants or garden spaces that don’t require frequent maintenance and support native insects and wildlife. Replacing turf with perennials, groundcovers, shrubs, and trees can reduce water consumption, pesticides, and fertilizers while increasing soil organic matter, building soil quality, and helping to retain and infiltrate stormwater"

While I have a nice bit of lawn front and back, I also try to provide natives for the pollinators. The only problem is I don't see very many pollinators these days, which I presume is due to neighbors treating their lawns with insecticide. I'm hoping my yard becomes a pollinator oasis.

My yard does seem to be an avian oasis. A pair of robins has built a nest in the same spot as last year: under the eave on top of a bend in the downspout behind the Japanese maple by the dining room window. I'm tempted to place a ladder there and take a weekly photograph.

And here is a photo of the mallards that stopped by last week. I'm surprised they don't pop in when the standing water is at its worst. It's hard to see, but the female is behind the fence in the photo below. They took off shortly after this pic was taken.

The 'Perfect Purple' flowering crab seems particularly laden with blossoms this year. The low branch on the right will have to be pruned, as it threatens my eyesight every time I mow.

Up close and personal.

The redbud trees seem to be underperforming this year, but it is early. They hit their peak in early May. And despite my wishing, it is not yet May. (The chair is an experiment, to see if I like sitting there, for a different view of the yard.)

Up close.

I've seen exhortations here and there that it is time to set up hummingbird feeders. Not so around here, as I rarely see them before June. The oriole feeder has not been visited yet, but from last year's blog, I see they did not show up until May.

Meanwhile, I've attended to a few spring chores, like cleaning the deck, some of the siding (until I ran out of cleaning solution), and renewing the stone mulch. What I love about this photo is the lack of crapola. There used to be a stack of cedar planks on the deck, plus some stray ones on the table. Things look a lot tidier now.

The installation of the rain garden is supposed to happen tomorrow, BUT one underground utility has yet to be marked: Frontier and their fiber optic cable. Ordinarily, I would not be too worried about this, BUT the cable is just a few inches below the surface and easy to damage. Will they show up today, a Sunday? Somehow, I doubt it.