Nothing says spring like the sound of polluting petrol mowers hammering nascent gardens into pristine striped carpets devoid of insects or mammals. So I was delighted by gardener Monty Don’s call to keep ours in the shed, especially now: the Plantlife charity has a popular #NoMayMow call to lay off the mowing this month in particular, to allow daisies and dandelions and bird’s-foot trefoil to burst from below. It is the best thing you can do in your garden for wildlife and the environment.

“Lawns are nature purged of death and sex,” says US writer Michael Pollan. Monty Don said that the peculiarly male British obsession with keeping grass short is about “controlling” rather than “embracing”.