Wildflowers: Sow. Grow. Plant.
Next Monday the workday team will begin sowing seeds for our annual wildflower project and we want you to get involved!
Andover Trees grow chalk grassland wildflowers each year as part of The Great Growing Project which aims to connect the community and especially young people with wildflowers (& trees).
How we do this has taken many forms including a “Flower Bed Storytime” in the High Street (pictured above), sowing and growing with schools as part of the ‘Six Trees, Six Flowers’ project and volunteers growing at-home under lockdown last year. The season always concludes with a community planting day at the flower meadow at Harmony woods.
So why do we do this - what’s so important about wildflowers?
If you put this question into Google you will find hundreds of journal articles, scientific papers and newspaper features covering the subject and there are entire books dedicated to Wildflowers.
Writing on the subject has proliferated in recent years as we humans have begun to understand just how important these plants are and how devastating it is that we have lost 97% of UK wildflower meadows since the 1930s. As the saying goes “you don't know what you've got until it's gone.”
Here are three key reasons to grow Wildflowers:-
Wildflowers are an important food source for pollinating insects, such as bees and butterflies, as they are rich in pollen. We rely on these insects to pollinate our crops of vegetables and fruit so that they grow and feed us.
Wildflowers improve the biodiversity of our landscape providing a crucial habitat for insects and therefore a food source for birds and other small mammals who feed on the insects. In the winter months, when food is scarce, seed heads also provide valuable nourishment for birds.
Wildflowers are a source of medicinal compounds e.g. foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) contain chemicals used to treat heart conditions.
So for the future of our food, our biodiversity and our medicine it is important that we protect and improve our wildflower habitats.
And, quite simply, they look beautiful and time spent gazing at a wildflower meadow (or a container on a windowsill) is never wasted and growing and gazing are proven to be good for our health.
How can you get involved?
The project is open to everyone, experience is always welcome but not essential.
You could join us at the allotment on Monday for some, socially-distanced, sowing. Please email doreen.gregori@andovertrees.org.uk
If this isn’t possible, because you are working, at school or perhaps you are shielding, then get in touch and we can deliver a growing kit to your house!
Wildflower further reading...