Now Mow: May moratorium ends
Jun. 2—North Mankato's No Mow May numbers likely don't show how many residents opted not to cut their lawns last month.
"We had 243 registrations this year; last year there were 277," said Water and Parks Supt. Duane Rader.
Despite that decline in statistics, he believes the popularity of the program has grown since 2022, the inaugural year for an initiative that encouraged property owners to help early-season pollinators by limiting grass mowing.
Noxious weeds still needed to be eradicated and registrants agree to have their properties back into compliance following the end of the program.
"I suspect some people were taking a free ride and not registering," Rader said.
"I've seen lots of lawns with grass that's a foot tall. It's like hay — they are gonna need a baler."
His advice was offered Thursday, the day the grass-cutting ordinance went back into effect for all North Mankatoans. Now that the moratorium has ceased, residents need to obey the city ordinance requiring them to keep their grass turf from growing no higher than 6 inches.
Mankato also completed its second year of offering No Mow May waivers.
"Four-hundred and fifty-four signed up this year. That's down from 734 last year," said Edell Fiedler, Mankato's public information and community engagement director.
"I'm not sure why ... but last year No Mow May was a new program. People were probably anxious to try it."
Rader expects to hear the sound of lots of small engines throughout North Mankato neighborhoods this weekend.
"They should finish up with their mowing by Monday."
Rader doesn't send crews out to monitor residents' lawns. Generally, his department acts on complaints from neighbors about unkempt properties.
"Then we send out a letter saying they have five days to cut their grass. If they don't, we send someone to mow and the property owner gets the bill.
Rader said his office did not receive any negative comments about No Mow May properties. He hopes the initiative is beneficial to pollinators, especially monarchs, a regionally threatened species of butterfly.
"I saw one in my backyard this spring!" he said.
Associated Press gardening columnist Jessica Damiano is not a proponent for the initiative that began in the United Kingdom in 2019 and is continuing to spread throughout the world.
Damiano recently said in an AP piece that some of the pollinators homeowners want to protect will likely get shredded up with the first mow of the season. And weeds and invasive plants that take hold during the monthlong moratorium won't simply disappear once the mowing commences. That might lead people to apply chemical pesticides they wouldn't otherwise use.
Some turf experts are advocating for an all-or-nothing approach. Tamson Yeh, with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County in New York, suggests property owners consider replacing the entire lawn, or part of it, with native plants or planting a wildflower meadow. Both will provide permanency for birds and pollinators while shrinking or eliminating the lawn, which frankly, has no redeeming value aside from subjective aesthetics, anyway, Yeh said.
When planting for beneficial insects, Yeh advises creating a corridor or path of pollen- and nectar-rich plants for migratory pollinators to travel along instead of spacing plants far apart.
"The best height for grass is 3 inches tall, but if you're mowing it down from 5 or 6 inches, do it over several sessions," she advised, adding that cutting grass by more than one-third of its height at one time can cause it to go into shock.
The gradual approach "also will give insects a chance to realize it's not a good place for them anymore," she said. Hopefully, they'll take the hint and move on to safer spaces.
Fiedler declined to weigh in on No Mow May. She said her husband takes care of their lawn.
"I'm an indoor person," she said.
Rader said he has a good reason for keeping his grass clipped.
"I do it for the kids in our neighborhood. They use our lawn for their soccer and football games."
