Summer is well and truly here and with it an almost endless list of jobs to keep your garden looking neat and tidy. But the good news is people can scrap one job from their list this month as gardeners are being asked  to leave the lawns alone in July to help nature bloom and keep your grass looking healthy in the long run.

Several campaigns have run over the summer months urging green-fingered individuals to resist firing up the lawn mower to give wildflowers, native grass and other plants a chance to bloom, creating a haven for bees to eat up the mix of pollen. This will help support your local environment as it supplies more nectar to pollinators that are in decline, like ladybirds, butterflies and, of course, bumblebees. Creating a haven for these insects now can also help you in the long run, as a healthy population of pollinators is what keeps your garden alive and flourishing.

Mark Schofield, an expert from Plant Life, has shared the benefits of letting your lawn become wild for a month.

He explained: "You will find that even in the fiercest droughts the wildflowers will stay green and keep flowering, while grasses fall dormant and turn brown."

With the current patchy and sometimes scorching weather, this has never been more evident, with lawns around the country turning to straw.

A July off mowing can also give your lawn a chance to reset, making it healthier than ever to enjoy in August and September.

There is some solid science behind the idea too, certain wildflowers like clover can also naturally fertilise the soil with more nitrogen, which also helps grass grow much stronger. 

Also, allowing your grass to grow helps strengthen its roots, allowing it to retain more water and become more resilient to drought or heat waves.

Although a neat lawn can be the centrepiece of a garden, it is understandable if a complete grow-out may be too much. In this case, you can still help your local bees out by simply mowing less frequently. 

Alternatively, you could section parts of your lawn off, keeping the sections by your chairs or barbecue neat and cut, with certain borders or areas left to the wildflower.

Mark said: “You might need to keep your paths and recreation areas mown short but perhaps you could frame these functional areas with a flowering lawn mown once every 4 to 8 weeks. 

“This allows common, low-growing wildflowers to regrow and reflower throughout the summer while you maintain a shorter, neater height.”