Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere and if you’re looking to give your garden a natural boost, scientists have a simple trick: don’t mow your lawn. Gardeners and bug lovers have long sworn by this advice, but now it has been reaffirmed by scientific research.
In a new study, scientists from Butterfly Conservation in the United Kingdom found that allowing parts of your garden to growing in nature with long grass can increase the number of butterflies up to 93 percent.
“Nature is in crisis; 80 percent of butterflies have declined since the 1970s, so we need to take action now to protect them,” said Dr. Richard Fox, Head of Science at Butterfly Conservation and co-author of the study, in a statement sent to IFLScience.
“We wanted to be able to give tried and tested gardening advice that will benefit butterflies as we know many people want to help. This study proves, for the first time, that allowing a patch of grass to grow longer will attract more butterflies in your garden,” continued Dr. Fox.
To arrive at these findings, the team analyzed butterfly sightings from more than 600 gardens in the UK, collected from members of the public over a six-year period.
The results showed that the gardens with long grass had a significantly higher number of butterflies recorded, as well as a greater variety of species. In rural areas, gardens with long grass saw up to 93 percent more butterflies, while those in urban areas had an 18 percent increase.
The European peacock, aka the peacock butterfly, is a colorful butterfly found in Europe and temperate Asia.
Image courtesy of Andrew Cooper/Butterfly Conservation
One of the main reasons that butterflies and others insects are in death it is habitat destruction. Basically, fewer wildflowers and shorter grass means fewer places for butterflies to feed and breed. By letting the grass grow long and full, it helps provide vulnerable bugs with much-needed shelter and can help fight the broader trend of insect decline.
Along with the humble grass, the study found that flowering ivy can also increase the number of certain species of butterflies – including the blue holly, the red admiral and the comma – because they provide insects with a breeding habitat and a source of nectar.
Even a little can make a big difference, researchers say. They found that even just leaving a small patch of grass uncut could help encourage the butterflies to return. Similarly, people without gardens can help by planting long grass or wildflowers on their balcony or in a window box.
“The simple act of creating wild spaces by allowing a piece of grass to grow long, or a border edge to go wild is free and easy to do, and can significantly increase the number of butterflies, especially in urban and agricultural environments where they are under more pressure. The benefits of each individual wild area are small, but if thousands of people get involved, the boost to butterflies could be huge,” explained Dr Fox.
The study is published in the journal Science of the total environment,
