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Comment by jvm___ | Hacker News Reader

"No mow May" to save the bees/over-wintering insects - is now almost impossible as you'll have more than a foot high of regular lawn grass before June 1.

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Genuine question: how does not mowing your lawn helps bees / insects?

I'm guessing that the lawn itself is incidental, and by not mowing you're letting flowers (including dandelions and clover?) grow?

Also, I'm gonna be up front about my ulterior motive: I hardly mow my lawn anyways and would love to have another reason to justify / rationalize what I'm already doing :)

But still - genuine question.

Many insects lay their eggs in the grass which hatch in early spring. By mowing early you may be destroying all of these eggs before they hatch.

There's debate about how effective it is, but that's the theory at least.

Also any sort of wildflowers let the bees eat an easy first meal before everything blooms.

I already have foot-high grass in places. Ask me if I care :-)

Impossible or inconvenient?

Impossible with my reel mower. Nearly impossible with my buddies electric mower. I think a good gas mower will get through it ok.

Irresponsible looking if you share 20ft of grass with a neighbour.

Meh. They could stop over-tending their yard.

The perfect lawn is a relatively new thing - blame Scott lawn and other lawn-care companies.

I agree on the class-ist vibes of a perfect lawn, it seems ugly and pointless. If you're going to put in the work, why not a beautiful native plants garden?

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