Are you taking part in No Mow May? Download our poster! 

Research undertaken by citizen scientists across the UK who have taken part in Plantlife’s Every Flower Counts - the largest-ever survey of the humble lawn - reveal not only the astonishing diversity of wild flowers growing on Britain’s lawns, but that incredibly simple changes in mowing can result in enough nectar for ten times more bees and other pollinators.

• Over 200 species were found flowering on lawns including rarities such as meadow saxifrage, knotted clover and eyebright

• The top three most abundant lawn flowers are daisy, white clover and selfheal. Over half a million flowers have been counted, including 191,200 daisies.

• First ever National Nectar Score for our lawns: all lawn flowers in the survey combined produced a colossal 23kg of nectar sugar per day, enough to support 2.1 million - or around 60,000 hives - of honeybees.

• The highest production of flowers and nectar sugar was on lawns cut once every four weeks. This gives ‘short-grass’ plants like daisies and white clover a chance to flower in profusion, boosting nectar production tenfold.

• Areas of longer unmown grass were, however, more diverse in their range of flowers, with other nectar-rich plants like oxeye daisy, field scabious and knapweed increasing the range of nectar sources for different pollinators and extending nectar availability into late summer.

Let's encourage our neighbours, family and friends to take part this May.

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