Talking to my sister-in-law recently, my husband told her about how, for the bees’ sake, I’d asked him not to mow the front lawn for a while. She joked that she would have done exactly the opposite. I laughed in reply and said nothing more on the matter. But, I have to admit, what she said irked me a little. Bees are important to the environment, and therefore important to us humans, and I think we ought to take more care with them.
I wrote the previous paragraph a few weeks ago, so now I can tell you how things turned out. My husband waited to mow until almost all of the clover flowers had gone by. The bees may not know to thank him, but I do (they enjoyed the clover, and I enjoyed watching them). The clover lasted longer than I’d anticipated, though, and the yard had grown quite wild. You should have seen how big some of the four-leaf clovers got! There were also all sorts of giant weeds out there, including daisy fleabane and, for the first time, Queen Anne’s lace. The Queen Anne’s lace hadn’t bloomed yet. My husband left one plant standing (mowed right around it!) so that I’d be able to enjoy the flowers later. 🙂