Common Eastern Bumblebee nectaring on a dandelion at Oakland University, which has adopted a “no spray” policy for campus lawns a move to more environmentally sustainable landscape practices. (Courtesy, Mary Jamieson)
Irish daisies are popping up on lawns everywhere, a scourge to some property owners. Most people call them dandelions.
But these bright yellow flowers are an essential early food source for honeybees, butterflies and other pollinators.
In an effort to help, a movement called “No Mow May” started about five years ago and has spread to communities across the U.S. The idea is to skip mowing for one month to give pollinators a first feast of dandelions and other flowers. Communities adopt a No Mow May ordinance so unkempt lawns don’t result in a blight citation for property owners.
Mary Jamieson, an associate professor of biological science at Oakland University, said No Mow May is a fun and catchy program but it’s not the best – or only – way to help endangered pollinators.
Royal Oak embraced No Mow May in 2022 at the request of middle-school students including Josi Hetherington, Leah Milligan, Lizzy Macey and Alice Woodward. This year they were honored with a city proclamation.
Now attending Royal Oak High School, Hetherington and Milligan are student representatives for the city’s Environmental Advisory Board. They praised No Mow May at Monday’s commission meeting, saying public education is helping residents reconsider what a “perfect lawn” looks like. They asked everyone to “bee the change” even though the four have outgrown their early “Bee Tweens” nickname.
Mayor Michael Fournier told the teens they influenced him to convert his backyard tomato patch into a flower garden.
“Not only is it beautiful, I’m not frustrated because I’m going out to pick a tomato that has a big (squirrel) bite out of it,” he said.
“No Mow May wouldn’t have been possible without these teens,” said Angela Fox, the city’s first full-time sustainability manager.
The teens’ work is why Royal Oak is one of just six Michigan municipalities certified by a group that promotes No Mow May and other ways to help bees, Bee City USA, along with Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti city and township, Detroit and St. Joseph. Bee City has endorsed four Michigan college campuses: Michigan State University, the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor and Dearborn locations and UM-affiliated Delta College.
Royal Oak sells small, colorful No Mow May signs to alert neighbors that an unruly yard is helping pollinators, but signs aren’t required, Fox said.
Nor are residents required to skip mowing in May.
“We’ve had some early warm weather. We’re not expecting residents to wait until June 1 if their lawn is out of control. We have had overnight frosts, so the longer you wait, the better chance pollinators have to survive,” Fox said.
Ferndale joined the no-mow movement last year. Logan Appleby, the city’s zero-waste manager, said the city is asking residents to consider creating a natural landscape to support pollinators throughout the season. Last year, 705 households registered for No Mow May; Appleby said about the same number are expected to do it this year. Ferndale’s dedicated webpage has details on helping the environment and ecosystem: https://www.ferndalemi.gov/resources/planned-natural-landscaping.
Jamieson, the OU professor, said a “No Spray May” would be more helpful because herbicides and pesticides hurt bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Some sprays have been linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma and other health concerns in humans, she said, and aren’t recommended for areas where children or pets will be playing. People who do use herbicides or pesticides in their yards should follow safety directions, she said.
Jamieson understands why property owners would like a manicured lawn but ignoring a few dandelions and adding flowering shrubs or trees – cherry, magnolia or oaks, for example – are deer resistant ways to feed pollinators.
“I live in Rochester Hills and in our area we lack a lot of spring wildflowers because of heavy deer browsing,” she said. “Deer bring in ticks and ticks like a wet tall-grass habitat. I’ve already gotten a tick from gardening on campus just a week ago.”
She encourages some mowing.
“The dandelions will be fine. They’ll come back if you mow – they just grow a little differently. You can have a tidy lawn and have dandelions,” she said.
Michigan has 465 species of bees, she said, which sounds like a lot. But a diverse group is needed for 90% of flowering plants, she said, which creates more-robust crops.
“We know that strawberry plants can self pollinate, for example. But those plants produce a hardier fruit when they’re pollinated by bees.”
Jamieson encourages people to consider replacing a traditional turf lawn with such short flowering plants to yards as clover and creeping thyme, yaak yarrow.
OU’s campus has pollinator-friendly gardens and other native plants that protect birds and other bugs, she said.
Dorin Melinte of Rochester Hills started beekeeping as a hobby, having heard stories about his grandfather and father cultivating bee colonies in Romania. After being deployed to Kuwait while in the U.S Army in 2010, he heard about MSU’s Heroes to Hives veterans outreach from a fellow soldier.
“It helps veterans cope with PTSD and other issues,” he said. “I took the online course during COVID and found a bee supplier in Brighton.”
He has a dozen hives and sells honey and creamed honey from one of his companies, Little Troopers, though his full-time job is running a home-renovation business.
“The honey business is not very big at all. I’m trying to keep it small, for now so I can get more experience. I also have a host-a-hive program,” he said, describing it as a way for him to install a hive in someone’s yard that he maintains.
Bees can travel up to five miles from their hives and the plants they pollinate affect the flavor of the honey, he said. His hives help pollinate flowers and crops in the Rochester and Romeo areas, he said.
“They’re more than just bugs flying around looking at your roses,” he said. “Without bees, we have no food.”
Right now, he said, honeybees may swarm as they look for a bigger home. He begs people to contact him or another beekeeper who can remove a swarm for free.
Like Jamieson, he’d prefer people avoid insecticides, herbicides and pesticides, which can kill colonies of bees. Butterflies, too.
Rochester Councilwoman Marilyn Trent said she was shocked in 2019 to learn that the population of Eastern monarchs dropped by 90%. Their key food source, milkweed, is disappearing. Insecticides are harming these butterflies that also pollinate Michigan’s crops.
“This opened up a whole new world for me about sustainability and conservation,” Trent said. “Each of us can do something in our backyard that can be a catalyst.”
She founded the group Rochester Pollinators as a creative passion and a way for her marketing company to give back to the community.
The group has 175 volunteers but they aren’t all working on the same projects at once. Rochester Pollinators sells native plants and seeds.
Trent calls No Mow May “a baby step to get people looking at their lawns in different ways. Turf grass does nothing for the environment – concrete is worse – but turf is outdated.”
Trent said lawns have replaced about 40 million acres of natural habitat across the U.S. and that lawn maintenance has led to more pesticides and herbicides getting into the ecosystem, which damages pollinators and other species.
Homeowners, she said, can save time and money by not fertilizing or mowing every week – and by holding off on spring cleanup of leaves and other plant debris.
“Fireflies overwinter in leaf litter, for example. Those leaves are little blankets for the chrysalides,” she said.
She recently testified in Lansing to amend House Bill 4857 removing milkweed of any species from the state’s noxious weed list.
“Natural plants are a gift that keeps giving. Some reproduce by their own seeds and support hundreds of kinds of pollinators,” she said.
Black-eyed Susans, Coreopsis, New England asters and spice bushes each support various pollinators, but an oak tree can support hundreds of species, she said.
Beekeeper Melinte encourages people to buy a “pollinating mix” of flower seeds to support bees throughout Michigan’s spring, summer and fall season.
Fox has a table at Royal Oak’s farmers market, to sell No Mow May signs and talk about gardening.
One way people can help the environment is by planting a tree, she said – but not a Bradford pear tree.
“It’s an invasive species and doesn’t help pollinators,” she said. “Other trees provide pollen and nectar, by far pollinators’ biggest food source.”
Michigan State University Extension has a free online class called Pollinator Champions at https://pollinators.msu.edu/programs/pollinator-champions/index.aspx.
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