Reduced mowing

Salford grassland management

Over 60% of Salford is greenspace. Our team manages over 1,000 hectares of council owned land, including sports pitches, parks, play areas, woodlands, local nature reserves, wildflower meadows, roadside verges and community spaces.

We’re out cutting the grass between March and September, but not every patch of grass needs the same cutting regime. Any grass used for sport or recreation will receive the appropriate management regime, but some other areas can help wildlife.

As part of the council’s commitment to climate change and increasing biodiversity, some grassland will be cut less often to encourage grasses and wildflowers to grow (once in the late summer or autumn). 

We will leave wildflowers and wild grassland in place even when brown and tired so the plants can set seed. If we cut them too early the seed will not have dropped, and they will not grow again next year so please be patient.

From now until 2022, we will be seeing what plants naturally flower. The soil can hold seeds for years waiting for the perfect conditions to grow. Rather than adding more seed into the soil we need to see what nature has to offer. This will be recorded and evaluated to see if more seeding is required in future years.

How does leaving the grass help nature?

Leaving grass to grow will double the biodiversity of species that grow within it and use it. Insects that pollinate our flowers and food crops (including butterflies and bees) alongside mammals and birds have been seen to flourish in similar reduced mowing regimes throughout the country.

Warmer temperatures associated with climate change can have a profound effect on pollinator ecology. Insects live with a body temperature close to their environment, so any change in temperature can have a direct effect on their biology. There is some evidence that the distributions of some insects and plants are changing in response to climate change, as to keep to their preferred temperature or growing conditions they need to relocate with the temperature (often moving north). This movement of wildlife is why wildlife corridors are important. We need safe stopping points for wildlife to move through our city and potentially new homes for them to occupy.

Cutting the grass less often will reduce our environmental impact from less machinery running and increasing the carbon storage potential of our grasslands. Grass absorbs carbon dioxide when it grows the same way trees do. Each plant takes carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and uses it to build more plant matter. This makes them a good carbon store. When grass is cut and dies that carbon is released back into the atmosphere through the organic matter decomposing.

Leaving grass to grow over time will create beautiful spaces for people to visit and be close to nature. Something we’ve learnt to value during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Benefits for people and wildlife

• increase plant and insect species diversity (including butterflies and bees), arthropods (from spiders to millipedes), birds and mammals.
• increase carbon capture
• more opportunities for connecting with nature
• increasing visual interest and colour in urban environments
• staff to do other environmental works like keeping sports pitches high quality over the summer months.