Let your lawn go wild

This is a very easy activity to do  – in fact, you don’t have to do anything! If you have a lawn in your garden, try leaving it to grow instead of giving it a mow!

A well looked-after lawn may look quite nice, but it is not an ideal habitat for wildlife. It’s what is known as a “monoculture”, a swathe of land dominated by one species: grass. Monocultures can rarely support as many creatures as diverse habitats that contain many different species, and you can improve the diversity of your lawn by letting it go a little bit wild.

You don’t have to dedicate your whole lawn – maybe just set aside an area to see what happens! If you try cutting areas to different lengths, and leave a patch to keep growing tall, you might notice different wildlife and plants appearing. Many different insects hide amongst tall grasses, and wildflowers might start to grow in amongst the grass. If you leave it alone, you might see daisies, speedwell, self-heal, buttercups and clovers, but even oxeye daisies, cowslips and orchids may appear too. When grass and other flowers go to seed, this can also attract birds such finches, an dhedgehogs love snufflign for food amongst the stems!

If you don’t have a lawn you can still get involved by helping to monitor local areas such as parks and verges. The #GrowDontMow campaign looks at different methods of managing semi-natural grasslands to show how small changes can result in big benefits to biodiversity and habitats.

Have you tried letting your grass grow? Share with us below any new visitors to your mini-meadow, and remember to click the Like button to let us know that you have completed this #RandomActofWildness!