May - Walk but Don't Mow!

May is National Walking Month! If you already walk a lot, this is the ideal time to get out and about and enjoy the great outdoors in, hopefully, the lovely Spring weather. If you don't walk much, then this is the ideal time to start! You can find out more about the benefits of walking and tips for how to include more walking in your daily routine, then the Living Streets website has lots of ideas! Their main campaign is to try to inspire people to walk for 20 minutes every day during May! 

Today I walked through the Dells alongside the Water of Leith, doing my weekly river patrol.  There are lots of wildflowers in bloom at the moment, including these lovely Red Dead Nettles, Forget-me-nots and Dandelions. 

The Wild Garlic (Ramsons) are starting to bloom

as are the buttercups

bluebells (some native bluebells and some that are hybrids between native and Spanish bluebells)

and a small patch of Greater Stitchwort 

If you have a garden, you might want to consider allowing a small patch to grow wild, you might get flowers like those above appearing amongst the grass! If so, you may be interested in No Mow May! This is a call to leave your lawn to grow throughout the month, allowing flowering plants to flourish in amongst the grasses. A richer variety of flowering plants will support a greater range of insects and other invertebrates, which in turn will support a range of birds and mammals. Trevor Dines (Trevor the Botanist) has an excellent thread on Twitter, about how having areas of both short grass (cut regularly) and long grass (cut once a year in Autumn) in your garden is ideal for wildlife. He also gives tips on how best to manage this.