Dear Lancaster Township Residents,

Dear Lancaster Township Residents, We love how ecologically-minded you are. Recently, our Board of Supervisors passed changes to our Grass and Weeds Ordinance to further promote the biodiversity of our community, However, we need to debunk a myth, and make one thing clear… No Mow May, is NOT OKAY! It might even be doing harm to the local ecosystem at large. What started with good intentions as a community trend, has been debunked. Native plants and a shift in land stewardship practices for property owners, away from the common well-manicured lawn, have demonstrated themselves to be a positive force for our pollinators, however, typically people who are practicing No Mow May are allowing their non-native, or even invasive, turfgrasses and weeds to grow during the month of May to a problematic degree. It is a huge reason for the positive ordinance changes to allow for Naturalized Landscape exceptions, and we will be educating residents on those in the coming months through online resources, but in the interim, we must insist that residents who still have turfgrass continue to mow and maintain their lawns to the required six inches or less to prevent seeding and spreading which can impact our waterways and neighbors. We send around inspectors on a weekly basis, and we will be enforcing maintenance requirements on weeds and turfgrasses. If you have any questions about No Mow May itself, please read this Q&A from PennState Extension, one of the places where we get information from to help aid our residents on these practices. For any additional questions, feel free to send an email to our Communication and Outreach Coordinator, Tony Dastra, at [email protected]. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding!