In a world full of avoidable problems, humans are at least getting better at one thing: supporting wildlife.

Lots of individuals are taking it on themselves to change their little bit of the world to make it hospitable for wildlife, challenging the decades-old habit of treating the garden as a neat, tidy, weed-free extension of the sitting room. Lawns resembling green carpets, purged of anything so vulgar as a dandelion, are less in vogue than they were. Adopting a lockdown do for part of the lawn, all shaggy and unkempt, has become not just acceptable but wildly popular.

It’s becoming quite common to see once-manicured lawns now rippling with tall grasses, with corridors mown through like Moses’s path through the Red Sea. Patches of self-sown buttercups, foxglove, red campion and wood anemone flourish unmolested next to driveways. Initiatives like Plantlife’s No Mow May (along with Let it Bloom June and Knee-High July) have helped spread the word. Advocates of the approach stress that it doesn’t mean abandoning close-cropped lawns. Even just having an unmowed bit or a wild window box helps, and the wildflowers turn it into a beautiful feature. Local authorities, too, are responding, by sowing native wildflowers on roundabouts, verges and in parks, to stunning effect.

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Wildlife is embracing these meadows in miniature. A tall lawn provides much-needed food and habitat for pollinators like bees and butterflies, who in turn provide a food source for birds. Tall grass also provides shelter and hiding places for moths to lay eggs and........

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