Wildflower Wednesday

Last Wednesday, the Milton Park team joined forces with some of our occupiers to plant wildflower plugs in the bank facing the railway behind the Innovation Centre.

The Nurture Landscape team who organised the event gave out gardening gloves and bulb planters and were on hand to give out advice. Each team of three were given a large tray with around 40 wildflower plants. Afterwards, the volunteers sprinkled a sand/wildflower mix over the area to show which areas had been planted alongside the cycle path.

The wildflowers that were planted were: 

• Red clover ‘Trifolium pratense’
• Ribwort plantain ‘Plantago lanceolata’
• Betony ‘Stachys officinalis’
• Yarrow ‘Achillea millefolium’
• Ox eye daisy ‘Leucanthemum vulgare’
• Greater knapweed ‘Centaurea scabiosa’
• Common agrimony ‘Agromonia eupatoria’
• Red campion ‘Silene dioica’

Why are wildflowers so important?

In the UK, we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s. These meadows provide shelter and food for bees as well as other important pollinators. There are over 250 species of bees in the UK, playing an important role in supporting ecosystems. Wildflower meadows are extremely diverse habitats and the more diversity, the more bees, birds, animals and other insects there will be!

What’s all the buzz about?

Bees were chosen as the spirit animal for Milton Park, as such, we are doing all we can to try and protect them here by planting wildflowers, installing bug hotels and more bee hives on the Park.

After all their hard work, our volunteers were rewarded with tea/coffee, and delicious chocolate chip cookies from Pierrepont’s café.

A big thank you to all those who took part!