Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Napanee’s Rotary Club is urging property owners to do nothing to help pollinating insects this May.
More specifically, they’re asking people to keep the lawn mower tucked away until June, instead letting their lawn grow. By leaving the grass untouched, it will allow weeds such as dandelions and milkweed to grow, which are much needed food sources for insects that play a crucial role in pollinating other plants and trees.
“There are two reasons not to mow your lawn in May, one is the destruction of habitat of bumble bees and fireflies,” said Nicole Butler, a member of the Napanee Rotary Club who also has a background in bee keeping. “They both nest very close to the ground. Bumble bees do borough under the ground but it’s not deep. The second (reason not to mow) is the devastation of food source for pollinators, and that’s all pollinators. When you mow too early you put the bees and the fire flies and other pollinators at risk. Bumble bees, like I said nest under ground, and mowing your lawn before they’re ready to emerge will destroy them and their nest.”
Fluctuating temperatures in early spring mean bees can emerge when it gets warm but then quickly retreat underground when it gets cold again.
To help get their message out the local Rotary Club is distributing signs for homeowners to place in their front yard to let their neighbours know they are participating in the ‘No Mow May’. The sign also contains a QR code that will link those interested in learning more to a website on their mobile device.
“The issue is if you’ve mowed your lawn or sprayed with pesticide you’ve made your lawn into a toxic wasteland,” said Butler. “You’re making it so that the bees either die consuming the pesticides or they have to go further and further afield for food. When they have to go further and further to look for food, it makes it an incredible hardship on them and it shortens their lives drastically.”
Bees in particular are crucial to crops such as fruit bearing trees that rely on the fuzzy insects to pollinate. Butler says the decline in the bee population has gotten so bad in China that farmers are forced to resort to pollinating by hand. It’s not just bees that have experienced a sharp decline.
“According to the David Suzuki foundation the monarch butterfly has plummeted more than 95 per cent since 1980,” said Butler. “That is absolutely devastating and everyone should be alarmed.”
Butler hopes by getting the word out and educating those willing to help they can re-shape what people think a lawn should be.
“We are so set on this weird idea of what our lawn should look like and it’s not eco friendly,” said Butler. “It’s a lot of work. People put a lot of work into their lawns to make sure it’s the right length, to make sure that it has no weeds in it, to make sure that it is perfectly green and there are no patches in it and the lawn is actually not native to North America. We need to move back to a more eco friendly environment and we seem to be very resistant.”
Best of all, helping out requires no effort.
“It’s the easiest thing that you could ever do, which is doing nothing,” said Butler.