Join Us for No Mow May!

Keep your lawnmowers in your garage for the month of May and give nature a helping hand!

No Mow May is a call to action to help our native pollinators and other wildlife thrive in the greenspaces where we live. During an entire month, we let the wildflowers on our lawns bloom, providing a feast of nectar and pollen for our hungry native bees, butterflies, and other critters whose populations have been declining in recent years due to habitat loss and degradation and climate change.

The idea of No Mow May came from a rewilding campaign that started in the UK and is now picking up steam in Canada. It encourages leaving lawns un-mowed for the month of May to support bees, butterflies, ants and other insects that are a vital part of our food chain. It gives their early sources of food (such as clover and dandelions) a chance to bloom and produce nectar and it allows them to find shelter.

The City will be suspending mowing operations for the month of May on the properties shown on the map below. However, we will continue mowing on or around our sports fields, playgrounds and dog parks and the City will maintain a mowed strip along trails and around benches, and water fountains.

In addition to adopting No Mow May, the City has taken a number of actions to protect pollinators and enhance biodiversity in our City. These include:

• naturalizing some areas that were previously mowed
• identifying and not mowing patches of milkweed, the monarch butterfly’s host plant, along City trails
• working with community partners to protect, conserve, and restore habitat
• acquiring environmentally significant land as directed by our Municipal Plan
• increasing the variety of street tree species we plant
• managing our urban forest

Looking for other ways to help pollinators or urban wildlife? Here are some other things you can do on your property

• plant native perennials in clumps that flower from spring to fall and are diverse in size, shape, and colour
• plant native trees that flower early in the spring, like red maple, red osier dogwood, crabapple, serviceberry, or willows
• plant host plants like milkweed
• offer clean water in a shallow bird bath with stones for perching on
• leave the leaves in the fall – they are food and shelter for urban wildlife in the winter
• embrace an “imperfect” yard
• avoid pesticides
• wait until it’s consistently above 10C in the spring to clean up or lay mulch. Many pollinators overwinter in dead plant material or in the ground. Decomposing leaves will also add nutrients to your soil
• create diverse habitats for nesting pollinators like bare ground, hollow stems, or piles of branches
• learn more about our local pollinators and spread the word

Properties included in the No Mow May pilot project (click to zoom out)

Residents of Fredericton can contribute to conservation and biodiversity in their own yards while saving money, time (the average household spends 20 hours mowing from May to October!), and greenhouse gas emissions from leaving mowers in the garage for a month*. If you can’t commit to suspending mowing in May, consider changing the height of the blades on your mower to leave slightly longer grass or mow less frequently. Other practices like leaving your leaves on the ground in the fall, letting plant debris stand over winter, and planting native, pollinator friendly perennials in your garden that bloom at different times of year can also benefit our pollinators. Collectively we can have a big impact on nature and improve our urban ecosystems.

*While the City of Fredericton does have a Bylaw pertaining to unsightly premises, it does not contain specific restrictions about grass height on private property.