Low-intensity management is part of good gardening

Can you withstand the neighbors’ looks if you let your lawn grow a little longer or leave the autumn leaves unraked?  Low-intensity management challenges us to rethink what a well-maintained environment actually looks like.

At this time of year, rakes are busy in the yards of detached houses. Fallen leaves are gathered, and gardens are tidied in preparation for winter. During summer, the same sense of order is maintained by mowing the lawn at regular intervals. But could good gardening also include not doing certain things? What if leaves were left in selected parts of the garden to provide shelter for overwintering insects, and part of the lawn gave way to more diverse vegetation? The change could begin on a small scale, but the questions it raises are much larger. Do we see an unraked corner as care for nature or as unfinished work? And what will the neighbors think?

Low-intensity management challenges not only our maintenance practices but also our ideas of what constitutes a beautiful and well-kept garden. Could our gardening culture evolve so that care is sometimes reflected in what we choose to leave untouched?

Lawns are a central feature of urban green spaces. They can help cool the environment, promote rainwater infiltration, and provide space for recreation. However, closely mown, species-poor lawns offer relatively little habitat for other organisms. Drought and wear place stress on lawns, and maintaining them requires work and resources. For this reason, they are increasingly complemented by meadows and other nature-based green spaces.

In European gardens of the 17th and 18th centuries, lawns were symbols of power and wealth: controlling nature and maintaining turf purely for aesthetic purposes demonstrated the owner’s social status. As lawn mowers and commercial seed mixtures became widespread in the 19th century, the green carpet of castles gradually evolved into a suburban ideal of beauty sustained by shared expectations.

Lawns remain popular because of their recreational value, their sense of openness, and their accepted place in public green spaces. A closely cut lawn can also feel safe, as an open environment makes it easy to see where one is going and what is happening nearby.

The RAMS maintenance classification developed by the Finnish Association of Landscape Industries recognizes the different values and maintenance needs of green spaces. As a result, the objectives and intensity of management can vary between built environments, meadows, and forests. Low-intensity management means intentionally reducing maintenance and allowing vegetation more room for natural development. The area is not left entirely to itself: goals and responsibilities are agreed upon, changes are monitored, and management is adjusted when necessary. Safety and the control of invasive species remain priorities even when maintenance is reduced.

Green areas are increasingly being developed to support biodiversity. For example, the goal of City of Helsinki Biodiversity Action Plan 2021–2028 promotes the conversion of little-used lawns into meadows. WWF, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, and numerous pollinator projects have also campaigned for meadows, more natural forms of green infrastructure, and pollinator-friendly environments. Urban grazing areas have become increasingly common as part of nature management in the green spaces of many municipalities and cities.

The Elonkierto Park in Jokioinen, a pilot site in the Interactive Gardens project, has adopted principles of  low-intensity management. Instead of mowing the entire park regularly, mowing is concentrated along pathways, gathering spaces, and areas where short vegetation is needed for safety and accessibility. Elsewhere, vegetation is allowed to grow, flower, and produce seeds. Some areas are managed as traditional rural biotopes through grazing. Mowing has also been reduced along selected path edges and woodland margins to provide pollinators with more food and shelter.

This is not a matter of abandoning maintenance altogether. Mowing is carefully timed and targeted, invasive species are monitored, and excessive shrub encroachment is prevented. In this way, the park balances the needs of visitors with the needs of other forms of life. At the same time, Elonkierto Park invites us to view familiar landscapes in a new light: could tall vegetation signal thoughtful stewardship rather than neglect?

Gardening is shaped by shared expectations. Research has shown that neighborhood examples influence preferred yard designs: established norms can discourage nature-friendly management, but a neighbor’s experiment may inspire others to do things differently.

Municipalities can also lead by example by changing their maintenance practices and communicating the reasons behind them. Such discussions can broaden our understanding of what constitutes a beautiful and well-maintained environment. A meadow swaying in the wind may evoke the movement of the sea and invite people to pause and reflect, offering a very different experience from that of a uniformly mown lawn.

Lawns in Cities: From a Globalised Urban Green Space Phenomenon to Sustainable Nature-Based Solutions (article, 2020) 

Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames (article, 1995)

Luontopihan aarteet (blog, 2026, in Finnish)

Urban pastures as sources of biodiversity and well-being (blog, 2026)