o Mow May is something of a Marmite topic for gardeners. While it’s easy for all of us to applaud local authorities leaving swathes of roadside verges and larger parks to become floriferous havens for wildlife, it’s a bit different when it comes to your own garden. For one thing, who wants a messy garden with nowhere to sit or to set up a paddling pool or croquet set? Then there’s the fact that you need to forget decades of indoctrination that ‘weeds are bad’, particularly in your lawn, when the truth is that a few flowers breaking up the expanse of an informal lawn doesn’t detract from the borders one jot. But loosening the stays of convention doesn’t mean you have to go all out – instead you can opt for a far simpler and, to my mind, easier-to-live-with compromise.
