Sustainable Warminster: In praise of wildflowers

A few weeks ago, Paul Jupp of Meadow in my Garden gave a talk at the Civic Centre about the importance of having any green civic space, plus areas in our gardens, given over to growing wild flowers.   

As well as being colourful, these areas are vital for encouraging insects and pollinators and contribute more than we realise to our future.   

Considering the bigger picture, in the UK there are some 24 million acres of grassland which receive 40 kilos of weed killer per acre! This will remove any chance of a buoyant insectivorous environment but more importantly, flora-rich meadows are proven to provide greater carbon storage than woodland.   

A test of a good evening is how long the Q&A lasts and hands were going up for some time.   

Paul was clearly enjoying himself and we were lucky to have Sustainable Warminster’s own ecological expert, Iain Perkins, to update the Plan Bee project which has been working on having these wild flower areas in the military housing areas and seed sowing was being done the very next day, helped by Paul and a number of other organisations.

This part of Plan Bee is cleverly called Pollination Street!

All in all, a rewarding evening and one where the message was clear: nature does not thrive in over tidy gardens so, next time you look at yours, give some thought about introducing some wildness and help the wonderful world of insects.

By Jennie Gilling – Events Secretary, Sustainable Warminster

Iain Perkins gave an update on the Plan Bee project