Melanie Gould and her dog Molly sit Thursday in her overgrown front yard in Lewiston. She has considered replacing her front lawn with a wildflower garden to give the bees and butterflies flowers all summer. “I’m a big wildflower person,” she said. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
LEWISTON — The front lawn of Melanie Gould’s house is overgrown and wild, a stark contrast to her neighbors’ tidy yards.
“I laugh every time I drive through (the neighborhood),” she said. “My lawn is definitely far longer than anybody else’s.”
Gould is participating in No Mow May, a movement started in 2019 in the United Kingdom to support pollinators such as bees and butterflies. It is gaining in popularity in the United States, with some municipalities, including Auburn, signing on to the cause by designating some or all of their public spaces as “No Mow” for the month.
Springtime is a critical window for newly emerged bees, who are hard-pressed to find nectar in the early spring. Dandelions, clover and blue violets, all early bloomers, are fantastic foods for pollinators.
The experience has been fun for Gould, who has been discovering new species of flowers in her yard.
“I know dandelions are just weeds, but they’re pretty,” she said. “I have these purple flowers that have started. I don’t really know what they are, but I’d much rather have flowers than lawn.”
Gould said she is not an organized gardener.
“Friends give me stuff. I’ll throw it in there and see if it lives,” she said. “I have these orange flowers that bloom. I also have a lot of thistle. The butterflies love it.”
Anyone can participate in No Mow May. It just involves doing nothing. Participants leave their lawnmowers and weed whackers in storage and let their lawns go wild for the month.
It also involves not using any fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides for the month. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has found pesticides to be a factor in the decline of honeybee colonies in North America.
No Mow May gives bees a much-needed boost at a time when the bee population is struggling worldwide.
“I get a ton of bumblebees out here,” Gould said. “I have a lot flowering, probably weeds. I just want to support them. If we don’t have bees, we don’t have food.”
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