This white tailed bumble bee is enjoying selfheal flowers which have spontaneously popped up in an unmown lawn
Image: Plantlife
Which would you choose? A barren desert wasteland? Or a tapestry of wild flowers teaming with insects, mammals and birds?
Lawns are great for leisure and as a foil to colourful planting, but they are also wildlife wastelands. Just 1% of our countryside is species-rich grassland but Plantlife suggests that ‘with 15 million gardens in Britain, our lawns have the potential to become major sources of nectar’, helping to reverse alarming declines in our insect populations and support a host of other wildlife.
Browse our wildflower seeds for inspiration. You don’t have to lose the lawn completely, but here are three ways to allow some wildness into your lawn, starting with the easiest.
Annelise Brilli is the Horticultural Copywriter for Thompson and Morgan. Annelise caught the gardening bug from her mother, whose tiny backyard was crammed with a huge collection of plants. As an adult, she had a career change into horticulture, gaining a training apprenticeship with the National Trust at Powis Castle Garden in Welshpool. She went on to work in a range of private and public gardens, later running a garden design and maintenance business. She is passionate about sustainable gardening and has developed her own wildlife-friendly garden which she has opened as part of Macmillan Coastal Garden Trail.
In June the garden is at its freshest. It’s time to sit back and enjoy long summer evenings surrounded by abundant flowers and lush foliage whilst surveying the results of all your work earlier in the year.
