Should I wait or should I mow now?

‘No mow’ programs may not save the Earth, but they put us in the right frame of mind

Climate-conscious homeowners interested in helping the environment by delaying mowing their lawns until Mother’s Day or even the end of May are facing some challenges this year.

For one, the unusually mild winter has resulted in the early growth of grass, bringing the prospect of unsightly suburban lawn scapes after six or more weeks without a trimming.

For another, as our climate reporter Jenny Whidden wrote Monday, it turns out the expanding “No Mow May” movement may not be as beneficial as it was originally thought to be. The combination of those factors may naturally leave us to assume we might as well dispense with our good intentions and get on with the cutting.

But stop a moment. It may be that delaying or reducing our lawn mowing won’t make the dent in climate change we might hope, but there’s still value in holding off.

For, as experts acknowledged in Whidden’s report, “No Mow” programs do promote some significant benefits. If nothing else, they call attention to the dangerous decline of pollinators in our ecological balancing act, because an underlying benefit of the programs is the “breather” they give beneficial insects who make their homes among our plants and grasses.

They also increase awareness of the stresses we add to the environment through the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers — while simultaneously helping us cut back at least slightly on those products.

And, they provide opportunities to think about different turf options and native plants that can add value and visual appeal to our lawns.

“Maintaining lawns takes a ton of inputs. People use fertilizer and herbicides and a ton of water. The data is that in some residential areas, 30 to 60% of potable water goes towards keeping lawns green,” conservation scientist Becky Barak told Whidden. “The mowers, especially gas mowers, put out a lot of carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. … I think there’s definitely benefits to putting less inputs into your lawn.”

In the interest of such considerations, suburban communities like Westmont, Glenview, Lombard, Northbrook and others help advance the fight for our environment and against climate change by putting a temporary hold on local regulations requiring lawn mowing, and homeowners and renters who can resist the temptation to fire up the mower contribute to the cause.

Perhaps the thing most worth remembering is balance. Letting our lawns go too long without care protects pests and weeds as well as those warm and fuzzy pollinators, so there is merit to keeping the grass under control. But giving nature some time to work on her own also has benefits that we should take advantage of.

“The best thing,” said Jamie Viebach, a horticulture educator with Illinois Extension’s Naperville office, “is just to keep learning, right? Hopefully, the goal is to learn more and do better and learn what we can do to be kinder to our pollinators, and our other local wildlife.”

So, while a “no mow” mentality might not have an immediate dramatic impact on the environment, it does put us in the right frame of mind, and that is an important start.