Top Tweets for #letitBloomJune

No Mow May is ending. What you do in June matters more than what you did in May. A month-long pause helps a little, but most native bees don't even emerge until June, July, or August. If you mow on June 1 like nothing happened, the May benefit goes with the grass clippings. The University of Minnesota Bee Lab recommends "Slow Mow Summer," which is closer to what the research actually supports. If you need to mow, try to only every two weeks instead of every week. The Lerman study found that lawns mowed every 1-2 weeks supported nearly as many bee species as lawns mowed every 3 weeks, and they stayed neighbor-friendly. Raise your mower deck to 3-4 inches. Taller grass shades the soil, holds moisture, shelters insects, and lets low-growing native flowers (violets, self-heal, native asters) actually bloom. Leave a patch unmowed, somewhere out of the way. Ground-nesting native bees, queen bumble bees, fireflies, and overwintering moths all use undisturbed grass and leaf litter.

Spraying one dandelion with Roundup can kill over 100 bees. The flower doesn't die instantly. Bees will keep visiting it for days, taking the poison back to their nests and hives. Never spray dandelions in spring and summer. They're one of the first major food sources for emerging pollinators. Let them bloom or remove them by hand.