Green gardens: How low should you mow your lawn?

The wildflowers we see in the wider countryside can be in the soil in our own gardens, ready to emerge with a little managed 'neglect' in areas of the lawn. Picture: iStock

I'll admit it. I’m a bit obsessive about mowing, and now I can use the battery mower to slice and dice whenever I feel like it with power straight from the roof — the maniacal behaviour has gotten worse. I executed the knee-deep stuff with the feted “first cut” in March.

The uncomfortable truth is that cutting the grass to the sod in our swiftly approaching summer is terrible for the native wildlife struggling around our gardens.