‘No Mow May’ Returning in State College

State College once again will allow residents to scale back on grass cutting in May as a way to promote pollinator-friendly lawn care.

Borough council earlier this month approved the “No Mow May” program and suspending the 6-inch limit for grass height from May 1 until June 3.

Residents who wish to participate are required to register online by May 10 and display a 2024 No Mow May yard sign provided by the borough. Signs will be available from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Municipal Building during the borough’s Earth Day celebration on Saturday. Signs can also be picked up at the Municipal Building beginning Monday.

Those who participate are reminded to keep grass to a manageable height so that it can be mowed in June.

The borough last held No Mow May in 2022. This time around, the initiative encourages residents to establish no-mow zones and pollinator rest areas on their properties, allowing floral resources like dandelions and clovers to bloom, and to develop long-term sustainable practices that support pollinators.

“I think that two years ago the messaging was more of ‘don’t mow your lawn’ than ‘preserve pollinators,’” Jasmine Fields, borough sustainability program officer, said. “This year I really tried to emphasize what pollinators need as far as those floral resources. Your standard turf lawn with no flowers on it is not really doing much for pollinators. I think really emphasizing sustainable long-term practices for our community was really important this year.”

Pollinators such as bees, flies, beetles, butterflies and hummingbirds are essential to the food chain and healthy ecosystems. Late spring and early summer is the formative period for many of them as they emerge from dormancy and require flowering plants as foraging habitat.

Urbanization and increased impervious surfaces make it difficult for pollinators to survive and to carry out their vital function for plants and the food chain of humans and animals.

“In the early spring, especially in urban and suburban landscapes, floral resources are limited, so we are encouraging people to… increase the amount of floral resources on their properties to help combat the issues of urbanization,” Fields said. “There’s been a lot of research done on the impacts of urbanization on our ecosystem suggesting that urban densification and impervious surfaces are the primary drivers of observed reduction of pollinator reduction in cities. So we’re trying to conserve pollinators, maintain the diversity in our community and really trying to develop a program for our municipality and for our residents to really combat this fragmentation that occurs when we start to develop and remove green spaces in our community.”

Responding to feedback from the 2022 “No Mow May,” the borough is offering more educational resources and tips for residents.

“No Mow May” is an opportunity to implement long-term practices such as developing a pollinator-friendly lawn with native wildflowers, vines, shrubs, grasses and trees blooming in succession throughout the season. Low-growing flowering plants can be maintained all season long, Fields said.

Property owners can also create pollinator rest areas — undisturbed spaces such as leaf and brush piles and dead woods for nesting and overwintering.

In addition to establishing no-mow zones or mowing less often, other tips for “No Mow May” include reducing or eliminating chemical pesticide and fertilizer usage. Residents are also encouraged to contribute their grass clippings to the borough’s organics recycling program.

For its part, the borough plans to establish no-mow zones and pollinator rest areas in parks, and Fields’ office will work with borough arborist plant more flowering trees.

Borough Manager Tom Fountaine emphasized that borough parks will still be maintained.

“There will be significant parts of the parks where we will be cutting grass, because parks are for community use and without cutting the grass we’d really diminish the usability of the parks,” Fountaine said. “What we will do is we’ll set aside certain areas in parks.”

State College has several resources for residents, Fields said, including homeowners’ guides to stormwater management and sustainable lawn practices, as well as Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professionals on staff. The borough is also working on a managed natural landscape policy, similar to one in Ferguson Township.

Fields’ office also has been working to improve programs and public education through conversations with partners including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Pennsylvania Native Plant Society, Penn State Pollinator Research Center, Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, State College Bird Club, Bird Town Pennsylvania, Juniata Valley Audobon Society, Centre County Conservation District.

The borough conducted a survey after the 2022 “No Mow May,” and while the majority of comments were positive, there was some negative feedback from residents who complained about neighboring lawns not being maintained, as well as some who had difficulty cutting their grass in June.

“We are trying to work through that this time a little bit differently, and again collecting data at the end of this program to see if this makes sense to continue to operate,” Fountaine said.