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00:00Hello, welcome to Gardener's World. Now you can see I'm not at Longmeadow today, I'm in
00:17a glorious wildflower meadow in Herefordshire. And that is because today's programme is devoted
00:24to the plight of our wildflowers. And it is a plight, because at one time the country
00:30was covered in meadows like this, but since the Second World War we've lost 97% of them.
00:37That is over 7.5 million acres have disappeared. And wildflower meadows are not just beautiful,
00:47they are really important. They support a huge range of wildlife, including over 400
00:53species of insects, and can have up to 300 different types of flower in an acre. So in
01:01this special programme, we shall be looking at the role of wildflowers for our wildlife,
01:07in our history, our culture, for our landscape, and critically, what we gardeners can do to
01:15help. Coming up on today's programme, Arit has been to Great Dixter in Sussex to learn
01:26about the startling discoveries made when they began to look more closely at the wildlife
01:32sharing their famous borders. Under the stone, they found a spider that hadn't been recorded
01:38in Sussex since 1903. And I thought, well, hold on, you know, there's a lot more to Dixter
01:43than meets the eye. Francis meets the garden designers, Jim and Joel Ashton, to find out how
01:50they put wildlife at the very heart of all their designs. From a very early age, we were gardeners
01:57of a different sort, you know, and thinking, how do we encourage wildlife through our gardening?
02:01And I've got a special appointment at Highgrove, the home of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
02:07to discover how a pioneering initiative is helping to safeguard the future of our meadows.
02:14When he came to Highgrove, it was the opportunity that he could do something,
02:18recreate a meadow and start to show people that this can be done.
02:21This glorious 170-year-old wildflower meadow in the heart of Herefordshire is special. But it
02:40didn't used to be. You used to be able to find meadows like this right across the country in
02:45every single county. And Adam has been to Lincolnshire to meet Mark Schofield of the
02:51Wildlife Trust to discover the importance and role of the wildflower meadow in our countryside.
03:10Wildflower meadows, I'm not sure there's anything more beautiful in the world. They're part of our
03:16landscape, but also they're part of our heritage. But the scary thing is that we have lost so many
03:22of them and they're still under threat. Mark Schofield is from the Wildlife Trust and he
03:34has grave concerns about the future of our wildflower meadows.
03:37Do you know, Mark, this is an absolutely stunning meadow. It really, really is.
03:43Getting the meadow feeling.
03:44I am, I am. But they're becoming a rarity, aren't they?
03:47Sadly, yes. Yeah, we think we've lost an area of wildflower-rich meadow one and a half times
03:53the size of Wales since the 1930s. The intensification of agriculture, fertilising
03:57the soil, it's all adding up. It's accumulating and it's changing the balance.
04:01And, you know, losing that flower, in a sense, it's the knock-on of that. What we lose and goes
04:06with it is scary, isn't it? Well, yeah, our permanent grassland,
04:09it's great at maintaining a continuity of nectar supply for our pollinators that need that throughout
04:14the year, especially our wild ones that do the bulk of the work. This is almost like the bottom row
04:19in a house of cards upon which everything else depends. The green and growing wildflowers that
04:24support our whole ecosystem. Earlier on, you talked about supporting pollinators,
04:35but it's not just that, is it? Places like this. Not just pollinators. Think of the reptiles,
04:39the amphibians, the birds we can hear singing. Yeah.
04:42And if we conserve the green and the growing stuff here at our feet, that's supporting the
04:47rest of the ecosystem, the rest of the food chain from the bottom up.
04:50But some of those birds are seriously under threat, aren't they?
04:52You're right. Think of the yellow hammer we can hear, linnet, meadow pippet. They're all declining
04:59in breeding numbers and the range they cover. But also, as well, it's our heritage, isn't it?
05:05I mean, this is a window into the past. This is really something that can evoke a sense of place,
05:10sense of your own local history. But more than that, I look here in front of me,
05:14that could be a herbaceous porter in the middle of my garden, couldn't it?
05:18And you'd never need to weed that. Cut it and clear it away once or twice a year,
05:23just to keep things neat outside of the key flowering season.
05:26But it's every bit as structural and colourful as you might plan for your own garden.
05:31Greater knapweed here, Centauria scabiosa. And you might well have that as cultivated
05:37stock in your own border. Exactly that, isn't it?
05:39That so many of these plants are basically where our ornamental plants have come from.
05:44So true. Field scabios, Nautia arvensis, a member of the teasel family. And, you know,
05:50again, that's giving you a lovely, high, nodding raft of colour. And over there,
05:55a puddle there of blue, just like a little understory in the meadow.
06:01That's just a cluster of hairbill, Campanula rotundifolia.
06:05And we say about birds, butterflies as well. Equally charismatic. And they're gracing
06:18the whole view that we have here today. So I can see meadow browns and gatekeepers and
06:25we'll see some marbled whites probably. And these are butterflies, these caterpillars,
06:30just eat grasses. But now they need to nectar in their adult stage on these wildflower blooms.
06:46So, you know, you walk into one of these meadows in the summer months and I think
06:49a lot of us think that that's when they're doing their work. But they're not, are they?
06:53Not just then. Springtime through summer into late autumn. And they're supplying
06:59pollinators with nectar and pollen. And they're colourful in our eyes.
07:04Yeah, they do put a smile on your face.
07:13Coming and spending time in a place like this, I don't think I could become any more detached from
07:19our everyday life. But to think there's only 3% of these left in the country is devastating.
07:26That said, us as gardeners, if we all did a little bit, we could make a massive difference.
07:43This meadow in Herefordshire is one of the surviving 3%. And we know that for the last
07:50170 years it has looked pretty much like this. I say pretty much because meadows vary from year
07:57to year. But there are certain key plants that will crop up again and again. And at the moment,
08:06one of the most obvious and glorious is the common spotted orchid. There are thousands of them,
08:13sprinkled across the field, everywhere you look. And they come in colours ranging from pink to
08:19lavender. There's even a pure white one there, just popping up. And we tend to think nowadays
08:25about orchids as something exotic and tropical. Well, they are exotic, but they're certainly not
08:31tropical. We have fabulous orchids in this country. And many of them grow in our meadows.
08:37They have certain fascinating growth patterns. Their seed is like dust. And it takes seven years
08:44from seed to flower. But in order to get orchids and other flowers, you must have grass that isn't
08:51too lush. And to ensure that, you need this plant. Now this, if I pick it, is the yellow rattle. And
08:58it's called yellow rattle because if you shake it, the seeds rattle in the cases. It's got a
09:06yellow flower. It's an annual. And it's partly parasitic on grass. They call it the meadow maker
09:13because it feeds on the nutrition that the grass needs and weakens the grass. It allows plants like
09:21orchids to grow. If you have too much grass, it dominates. And then you get a monoculture and the
09:27wildflowers disappear and they don't come back. But if you sow yellow rattle, everything follows
09:33in its wake. You get plants like red clover, which they used to call bees bread because it is
09:40wonderful for bees. They love it. And just next to it is this, which is the bird's foot trefoil,
09:47sometimes called the egg and bacon plant because it has touches of red with the yellow. And in
09:52fact, this isn't particularly rare, but it's important in meadows because no other plant
09:58is so supportive of insect life. They say over 160 different species of insect feed off the egg
10:06and bacon plant. Now, however lovely this is, I can see that you might be thinking, how on earth
10:16does this relate to me and my garden at home? Well, there is a connection to be made. And to
10:23discover more about that, Eric went down to Great Dixter and met the head gardener Fergus Garrett,
10:29who thought he knew Great Dixter intimately. But recently he's been making some fascinating
10:35discoveries.
10:45Fergus, you've been here over 25 years and I'd have thought that you would know every inch of
10:51this garden, you know, every flower, every blade of grass. But recently you've had some new insight.
10:57Well, Eric, I thought I knew it inside out, this place, but actually I hadn't really opened up my
11:02brain to the wildlife side of things. We're not planting a plant because it attracts pollinators,
11:07we want to create an ornamental garden. So we've just gone ahead and done that. But secondary to
11:12that has been all the wildlife that's come along. And I think the interesting thing for me has been
11:17that I expected all the wildlife to be out in these meadow areas. But all the results are showing that
11:23these things are here in the garden. And now you know that you're sharing it with all those
11:28wonderful creatures that used to be throughout the land here. We can expand on that and make
11:34sure that those populations grow. Recently you got some new revelations, I hear. I asked the British
11:41Arachnological Society to come here. And under the stone they found a spider that hadn't been
11:46recorded in Sussex since 1903. And then we were away. And next thing we know it, we're a front page
11:52of the British Arachnological Society magazine, four pages in there. And I thought, well, hold on,
11:58there's a lot more to Dixa than meets the eye.
12:05The person who delivered this amazing news is entomologist Andy Phillips.
12:10What sort of habitats do you have to create in the garden to enable all of the biodiversity?
12:15You need to provide the different microhabitats. And that's what they do here in Great Dixa in
12:19abundance. The log piles, the bare ground, the sandy banks. It's very well known how important
12:26ponds in gardens are, especially for amphibians, dragonflies, water beetles.
12:31But what is not well known is actually there are some pollinator groups that actually have
12:36larval aquatic stages, such as droneflies, which are important pollinators. Or even in a stump of
12:43a tree, which is hollowed out and water collects in it. That's a very important habitat for some
12:49hoverfly. In the thatched roofs here at Great Dixa, we get hundreds of pale-footed black wasp,
12:56which are preys on aphids within the gardens. Within each nest burrow, they'll be collecting
13:02about 200 aphids. Why is biodiversity so important in the garden? It creates a very nice balance in
13:10the garden, I think. There are certain things that are eating some of the nasties, so that we don't
13:16feel the urge to sort of spray everything, because the insects are doing that job.
13:30Oh, this is a fantastic wall. You get quite a variety of different bees actually nesting in
13:35the loose water and the crumbling parts of the wall. One of the most abundant species here is
13:40the green furrow bee, a tiny little metallic green bee. Mexican daisy, I mean, presumably that's
13:47good because it flowers long times? Got a very long flowering time, so there's a fantastic
13:52nectar and pollen resource on this wall. Especially as it's south-facing, it heats up,
13:58and so you get a huge variety of mining bees and furrow bees actually collecting pollen.
14:06You know, you've got quite short grass here, and then you've gone longer. Is that deliberate?
14:11Well, this is a meadow that was cut, and this is the mown bit, but you don't need to mow this
14:17all the time, because if you look in here, you know, there are lots of little sort of vetches and
14:22odd bits of dandelion and sort of clover and all those sort of things. That would be our lawn weeds,
14:28and they provide an interesting nectar and pollen source for certain insects.
14:36The taller meadow and the shorter lawn with the bare patches is really important for a lot of
14:40different species of mining bee. Mining bees were actually all nested in the ground in these
14:46little bare patches, and they would then use the dandelions, the flush of dandelions in early spring
14:52as a pollen and nectar resource.
15:03I know this garden wasn't created as a wildlife garden, but what do you think you've
15:08done to kind of really keep that going in terms of your gardening practices?
15:11The fact that we don't cut everything down at this time of year, and we've always had a long
15:16season of interest at Dixter, which gives you a really long season of
15:21pollen and nectar sources, and so it's not only as good for insects to lay their eggs in the stems
15:26of grasses, and you've got the seed heads there that are so nice for the birds as well, as well as
15:31you know, aesthetically, the winter skeletons are wonderful with a bit of hoar frost over the top of
15:36them in the winter. The botanical diversity of a garden such as Great Dixter is really good for a
15:42whole range of invertebrates, but particularly moths, and this is a typical sort of autumn species
15:49of moth called the myrtle du jour. There he is, he certainly is, it's more like marvel du jour.
15:57Yeah it's a stunning little, it feeds on oak, oak buds and then oak leaves later on, and comes out
16:04in sort of September or October. Well some moth species actually are pollinators, so they will
16:10actually be feeding on flowers and pollinating flowers the same as butterflies do. In Britain
16:16there's about 2,500 species of moth and sort of around 60 species of butterfly, so yeah the
16:22diversity of moths is much greater. And they're an important food source as well, you see they're
16:28part of that chain, so the birds and the bats and those sort of things will take them off,
16:32so they're all part of that that web.
16:34And that really is the classic Great Dixter view isn't it?
16:47So the interesting thing about this is that it relates to somebody with a smaller garden,
16:51because collectively a number of small gardens working together can have the same effect. The
16:57wildlife doesn't need to exist out there in nature reserves and out in the countryside,
17:02it can come into these suburban and urban places.
17:23There are two things that I take from that. The first is it's never too late to learn something
17:28new. And the second thing is that every garden is really important, because plants and animals
17:35don't differentiate between a meadow in Herefordshire or a big garden like Great Dixter
17:40and your back garden wherever it might be. If you've got the long grass, you've got the pond,
17:45the creatures will come. And there are 23 million gardens in this country. If everybody does
17:51something, they connect. And 23 million gardens make a really significant habitat.
17:59And that is going to make a difference.
18:05Plantlife is a charity at the forefront of the campaign to save our wild meadows and grasslands.
18:12And these fields are one of their protected reserves. Botanical specialist Dr Trevor Dynes
18:18is keen to get us all involved in the fight to protect our precious wildflower heritage.
18:27Whilst I can see that wildflower meadows are beautiful, they bring joy to one's heart,
18:34and personally I think they're very precious and should be preserved, we live in a very overcrowded
18:38world. Are they a luxury that sooner or later we're just not going to be able to afford?
18:42No, I don't think so, because, you know, food production is only ever going to increase.
18:47We've got a growing population, that's never going to change. And those crops will need
18:52pollinating, so we have to have pollinators with us. We can't exist without them.
18:57If we bring these wildflower meadows, or even just strips of these wildflower meadows,
19:03into our fields, there's two benefits. You get predator control as well as the pollination.
19:09And the beauty of this is that yields will start to increase, so we can make these work for us.
19:15Then you've got things like flood control, you know, a landscape like this
19:19holds onto the water much better than it would for an arable field. Not only that,
19:24you've got things like carbon capture as well. You know, people think that woodlands are so
19:28important for carbon capture, but, you know, a wildflower meadow actually stores, all grasslands
19:35store their carbon underground in that soil. And there's as much carbon in the soil underneath us
19:41here as there is in that woodland canopy. And is it good for grazing animals?
19:46These are packed full of plants that are really important for the animals themselves.
19:51Back in the olden days, you know, the farms around here over in Wales, they would have had,
19:55each one would have had a chai, a sputty, a hospital field. And that was somewhere where
20:00they would put sick and injured animals. And they knew that those animals would forage the plants
20:07that they needed to get better. It was a place where they would recover faster. So things like
20:11this bird's foot trefoil, for example, we're just learning that the tannins in that reduce
20:15internal parasites in livestock. So there's medicinal values for this. And the sward that
20:20comes out of this is packed full of amino acids, proteins and minerals. And in fact,
20:28meadows like this can be as productive, if not more productive than a typical agricultural sward.
20:37So if we could persuade people in farms and gardens to have a whole quilt, a patchwork of
20:44wildflower meadows evenly spread out, that would be completely beneficial.
20:50That's what we had in the past. And it's that tapestry that we need to get back. I mean, you can
20:55have a fantastic wildflower meadow packed full of species with all those pollinators in place within
21:01seven to ten years. If we just give them that chance,
21:05these things can come back very, very quickly into the landscape.
21:12Clearly, these ancient meadows are really valuable and important and should be preserved at all costs.
21:20But there are other ways of taking the idea of a meadow into your garden. And Nick has been to
21:26Stoke-on-Trent to visit a garden that has created its own twist on the meadow.
21:44Here at Trentum Gardens, Carol and her team have been actively growing their own meadows
21:49to show gardeners just how they can make a positive impact with wildflowers.
21:53Carol, we're stood in a beautiful meadow. It's incredibly diverse, beautiful range of plants,
21:58but this is just one example of the type of meadows you can create, isn't it?
22:01It is, yeah. This is an ornamental meadow as an alternative to a wildflower meadow using
22:07British native species. And I guess the key difference is an ornamental meadow like this
22:12is predominantly alien species from overseas, as opposed to a wildflower meadow, which is very much
22:18just using our native species. That's correct, yes.
22:21The ornamental meadow has a much longer flowering period because you're using different cultivars
22:27of plants that are going to give you succession. So this starts flowering
22:31end of June and will flower right the way through to the first frost in November.
22:37So what would you expect to find in a typical native meadow mix? What species, which plants?
22:43So in an annual native species mix, we'd see these blue cornflowers that we've got,
22:49the red field poppies, and then in a perennial mix, that can be quite a diverse range of different
22:53types of daisies, oxeye daisies, for example. And then an ornamental mix like this,
22:58they can literally be from anywhere, can't they? They can indeed. We've got a phycelius and we've
23:04got the coreopsis with the yellow daisy flower with the dark throat to it. That's fantastic for
23:10giving us really late season colour. I mean, this ammy is something I consistently see in
23:15ornamental mixes. I mean, it feels a bit like our native cow parcel. Brilliant for pollinators,
23:20loads of pollen in there. And it isn't just butterflies and bees, but it's things like
23:24the parasitoid wasps, which help balance the other pests in your garden. So the ornamental
23:29mix has been selected to have good open flower structure, good landing pads for different
23:34types of pollinators, and it's giving you a longer season of flower, but it's maybe not the niche
23:41for the insects that are in your area by comparison to choosing a native mix.
23:57The annual ornamental meadow that's behind us is looking absolutely glorious and dare I say
24:03effortless, but I'm sure it took a bit more than that. So what was the process you used to do this?
24:08Because the soil is so poor in this area, what we've done is put a very thin layer of composted
24:14green waste over the top, sown the seed into that, and literally then just stepped away from the
24:20from the meadow and just let it get on with itself. Wow, so this spectacular looking thing
24:25was just a one-off job back in spring and no input, no water, no nothing? No, no water,
24:30no nothing else added to it. I think that's just brilliant because, I mean, a herbaceous border
24:36this size would have been tens and tens of hour and water and feed and staking, yet arguably this
24:43looks as spectacular but with virtually zero maintenance. Yeah. Brilliant. It's fantastic,
24:48as if it was all this easy, it'd be great.
25:00Carol, we're all very aware that British wildflower meadows are under
25:04serious threat, but as gardeners, what can we do on our plots to account for that habitat loss?
25:11There's loads of things that people can do. If you've got a large garden, then you could do
25:15something broad scale like this, with loads of colour, whether it's annual or perennial.
25:20If we've got a smaller plot, we could look at making the lawn slightly smaller, so those tricky
25:25bits to get the mower in at, the bottoms of fences, make that wider and go in with a mix there,
25:31or the bottom of a hedgerow. So it gives you a sort of a meadow strip, effectively. Yes, yeah, and looking
25:36at shrub borders and perennial borders where we've got some gaps, and sowing an annual mix through
25:41those would be fantastic, give lots of colour. I guess the nice thing about doing that is it will
25:46set up a seed bank in your existing borders, so when little chinks open up, then those plants will
25:50germinate in subsequent years. Yeah, for sure, that would be fantastic. So we can make a difference in
25:56our gardens. Certainly, yeah, bring lots of plant material into the gardens and really provide that habitat.
26:16I think that shows that you can make something really special by taking the inspiration of a
26:23wildflower meadow, but instead of using it in grass, using it in cultivated ground,
26:27and also that's very good for wildlife. Now, still to come on today's programme.
26:34I meet Debs Goodenough, the head gardener at Highgrove, the home of His Royal Highness,
26:40the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. To find out more about the Prince's own wildflower
26:46meadow and a very personal project he launched to help conserve our wildflower heritage.
26:52His Royal Highness wanted to halt the decline and start to put back what had been lost.
26:58Carol picks her top plants for creating a wildlife-friendly border. The more you've got,
27:05the more your garden's going to be an oasis, a restaurant where insects are going to flock.
27:13But first, Frances meets Jim and Joel Ashton, designers better known as the Butterfly Brothers,
27:20who always put wildlife right at the core of their designs.
27:32We all know that planting native wildflowers, trees and shrubs is the best way to guarantee
27:37an abundance of wildlife in our gardens. But the good news is, if formal design
27:44is more your thing, you don't necessarily have to compromise.
27:51This garden is just over half an acre and it's in the centre of Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire.
27:58Stansted Airport is just over there and yet this whole garden is a stunning haven for wildlife.
28:13So how did all this begin? It was from really a feral childhood, wasn't it? It was very feral.
28:18Kicked out the door in the morning and then brought back in at dinnertime. We had a wildlife
28:22pond in the garden and we kind of spent most of our Saturday and Sundays looking into that and
28:27seeing what we could find and teasing newts out of the weed with a maggot on a piece of fish in
28:32our dad's fishing line. So it was really great and it kind of went from there, didn't it?
28:36Yeah, it was a total immersion in the natural world. Our mother's side, they were all keen
28:42gardeners. That wasn't naturally going to rub off, but it was always, she'd say,
28:46why are you messing about with nettles and thistles? So from a very early age, we were
28:51gardeners of a different sort and thinking, how do we encourage wildlife through our gardening?
28:57So it started in a really nice way and then progressed into something that we do now,
29:03which is quite lovely.
29:09This garden is one of the first the brothers built back in 2014.
29:13Homeowners, Nigel and Jill Kirby, wanted to create a host of different wildlife habitats,
29:18along with more formal and herbaceous areas.
29:21They were made possible and overlap, thanks to some very clever design.
29:28It's about thinking outside of the box and thinking, you know, not just to use the flat
29:31spaces, but the vertical spaces as well. So for example, behind us, we've got this lovely
29:35oak trellis screening, which doubles up not only as a focal point with that log wall in the middle,
29:39that in turn is a little habitat for creepy crawlies, but as well, the double lattice
29:43screening that we've put either side of it. Once those climbers, such as the clematis
29:47or the honeysuckle have grown up through it to create a nice dense screen, blackbirds,
29:51robins and that sort of thing will nest in it as well. So it's a double whammy.
29:53And sort of dual-purposing things, like this fence that was up as an insect house on the
29:58other side. So you're sort of not necessarily noticing it too much, but it is there and
30:02it's doing a job.
30:03Absolutely.
30:09Wildlife can love even the most formal features.
30:14This urn is a great focal point, but birds bathe underneath in the drips and on the top.
30:21And in the borders, the brothers combine lots of wildflowers, like this lady's bed straw,
30:26alongside more traditional plants.
30:29It really will create a fantastic variety of colours and a long flowering period,
30:34of course, which is a key thing.
30:35And the things that are popular, you know, nowadays, people love having digitalis.
30:39Nigella in amongst their flower borders as well.
30:42So it's really come into fashion to use those plants too.
30:44So it's not a compromise on the aesthetic, but it does a job as well.
30:49Amazing.
30:50Just look at that lavender, it's teeming with bees.
30:52Hundreds of bees.
30:57And how do you feel straight lines versus kind of curvy lines?
31:00Is there a preference in terms of wildlife?
31:03Is there a better way?
31:04It's purely on aesthetics, you know, at the end of the day, if you've got a border that's
31:08three foot deep on a south-facing wall, you know, the bees and the butterflies are going to love it
31:11just the same as if it's got some, you know, kind of ebbs and flows.
31:14Wildlife doesn't care whether it's a straight line or curve.
31:17There you go, see the myth.
31:18You don't have to have a natural-looking garden to have a wildlife-friendly garden.
31:21Absolutely not, no.
31:24Unsurprisingly, the brothers are very keen on attracting butterflies and moths to their gardens.
31:30There's even a moth border here, filled with nectar-rich,
31:34strong-smelling plants in white and cream to help night-flying moths to find a good meal.
31:40But that's not all.
31:43Good food plants will bring butterflies and moths into your garden,
31:47but to keep the population growing,
31:49it's so important that you also provide them with places where they can lay their eggs.
31:55Some caterpillars have evolved to feed on specific plants,
31:58and others are less fussy, so the edges of the meadow are full of caterpillar favourites.
32:05So, growing in the woodland border here, amidst the wildflowers for the nectar,
32:09we've got these shrubs, older buckthorn and this buckthorn,
32:12and these are to attract the brimstone butterfly.
32:14And if you look closely, you can see there's just a larvae there, one of the caterpillars.
32:19Oh, yeah, that's amazing.
32:20And that's going to turn into a butterfly quite soon.
32:23It's nearly ready to pupate.
32:25So, again, you can see that they're pulling in.
32:27There's another one down here.
32:28It's pulling the butterflies in.
32:29That's going to keep them here and breed, so that's quite exciting.
32:32Incredible. So, different species will bring in different species of butterfly.
32:35Yeah, exactly.
32:37Lots of caterpillar favourites are likely in our gardens already.
32:41Holly and ivy, for example, are used by the holly blue butterflies,
32:46and they also give homes to nesting birds.
32:50Even just longish grass brings in this meadow brown butterfly.
32:55Do you have favourite species of caterpillar or moth or butterfly?
32:59Yeah, I mean, to be honest, it's hard to come here and choose one because there's so many usually.
33:03Also, in Malayne, we grow the baskums, which many people are familiar with,
33:07and we've got some great Malayne on the chalk bank over there that seeds around every year,
33:11and there's some lovely Malayne larvae on that at the moment, some big caterpillars.
33:14So, will they be moths or butterflies?
33:16They're moths, so that's, again, another species that's always here every year,
33:21and the numbers are increasing because we're planting those.
33:24So, it's really conservation in action.
33:26And how does that make you feel, having impacted so positively on the environment
33:30and creating a beautiful garden at the same time?
33:33Pretty good.
33:34Yeah.
33:34It's wonderful.
33:34I don't blame you.
33:35It's really nice, yeah.
33:42I am blown away by the diversity of wildlife in this garden.
33:47I've even seen lizards amidst the huge array of insects,
33:51all right in the middle of Bishop's Stortford.
33:56So, that shows that you can make a garden
34:06that is really good for wildlife of any kind and at any level.
34:11Now, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has long been a champion of wildflower meadows,
34:19and the other day I had the good fortune to go to his own garden at Highgrove
34:23and meet his head gardener, Debs Goodenough,
34:26to look at and enjoy the wildflower meadow that he has made there.
34:37The meadow surrounding the house at Highgrove was created over 30 years ago.
34:42During early summer, it's filled with a wide variety of wildflowers,
34:47including yellow rattle, oxeye daisies, red clover, and a range of grasses.
34:54Debs Goodenough has been the head gardener here for 11 years,
34:59and one of her many tasks is to maintain this wonderful expanse,
35:03which is now in its full summer glory.
35:08What prompted His Royal Highness to make a meadow on this scale?
35:11Because it wasn't a normal thing to do back then, was it?
35:14No. His Royal Highness had found out that it was sort of 95% of all wildflower meadows
35:19were lost in the years between the Second World War and the early 80s.
35:23Things were ploughed, sprayed, you know, change of management,
35:26and he wanted to stop that, halt the decline, and start to put back what had been lost.
35:32When he came to Highgrove, it was the opportunity that he could do something,
35:37recreate a meadow and start to show people that this can be done.
35:43In order to develop the meadow, His Royal Highness began a collaboration
35:47with a naturalist and conservationist, Dame Miriam Rothschild,
35:50who for many years had campaigned to introduce wildflowers to gardens,
35:54parks and motorways, using a seed mix that she had created.
36:01His Royal Highness took her advice and she gave him a mix which was called
36:06Farmer's Nightmare, and that was primarily an annual mix,
36:10but His Royal Highness had some perennials mixed in with that,
36:12and it's all the things that farmers don't want in their crop fields,
36:16and it gave you that sort of real flush of annuals, the poppies and things like that.
36:19And so that really gave that first sort of blast of colour and interest in the meadow.
36:25The seed mix contained different species
36:28that were typical of the natural flora of Gloucestershire.
36:33Taking her advice, this was done almost as a showpiece,
36:36to show people what they were missing.
36:38That's right. Dame Miriam Rothschild reckoned that she could put a
36:42fairly good meadow back in about 15 years.
36:45That's still quite a long timescale for most people in their back gardens, isn't it?
36:49What can they do to take this idea and translate it to their garden and start now?
36:55Have some annuals in the mix so that you get immediate sort of success,
37:00immediate sort of feedback from your meadow, and that can be done.
37:03And so that's one thing I would recommend, put a few annuals in.
37:07I always advise people to start as small as they possibly can, a square metre,
37:10even start off with that, get some very fresh seed, make sure you've got a good seed mix,
37:15and then preferably it should be sown in the autumn.
37:20Get it in there before Christmas, that's what I'd say.
37:22If you can get it in in September, even better.
37:24It needs that cold vernalisation, the chilling, which is really important.
37:28You can mow it when it starts to come up and keep,
37:30you can mow things right up until the end of March.
37:34But then after that, you stop and you watch.
37:36Right. Make sure there's nothing nasty.
37:38But if you have weeds coming up and we have weeds coming up and here we've got docks
37:42and we've got hogweed and a few other things that we just sort of hand rogue out,
37:48and that's why I just say start small so you can keep an eye on it.
37:50If that's successful, then you can actually watch it,
37:54collect the seed, and then double the size.
37:56Go bigger, go bigger, but don't bite off so much,
38:00then the disappointment is so much bigger if you don't get it right.
38:03Keep it manageable. And you cut the grass really short.
38:06Really short, and if you've got a scarifying blade on your mower,
38:09scarify it, rake it off, rake it off.
38:11But make sure you're not taking the richest bit of your lawn to do it in.
38:15You want one of the poorest areas because that's where you have the best of success.
38:33This is providing pleasure and inspiration to many, many people.
38:37But what's the plan for the future?
38:39Because we have lost so much.
38:42For the Queen's Jubilee, for her coronation,
38:46Israel Hannes set up the Coronation Meadows Scheme,
38:49which was picking 60 meadows across the country in 60 counties
38:56to create and use them as donor meadows for 60 new meadows.
39:00And these were meadows that were unspoiled and full of wildflowers.
39:04That's right.
39:05As a result of the Coronation Meadow Initiative,
39:0788 new wildflower meadows have now been created across the country.
39:13Wouldn't it be wonderful if the countryside could look a bit more like this
39:17and less like a sort of industrial agricultural estate?
39:21I hope we're around to see it, Mountie.
39:30Highgrove is a major garden.
39:33A major garden full of lovely things.
39:36But nothing in it is lovelier than its wildflower meadow in its summer pomp.
39:43And this is now the 25th anniversary that His Royal Highness
39:47has opened the garden to the public.
39:50It means that thousands of people have been able to share the garden.
39:56And I can guarantee that every one of them
39:59has taken something of this meadow back home with them.
40:04So, Trevor, the Coronation Meadow Scheme was a brilliantly simple idea
40:20and I think you were involved in that.
40:21That's right.
40:22Prince Charles, our patron, approached Plantlife and said,
40:25you know, could he make his vision work?
40:27Could we make it a reality of creating these new meadows
40:32in every county?
40:33So one of my first jobs was to help identify which were the Coronation Meadows,
40:39those ancient sort of flagship meadows for each county.
40:42And this is one of them.
40:42This is the Coronation Meadow for Herefordshire.
40:46So where are you now in terms of Coronation Meadows?
40:49How far have we reached?
40:50Over 2,000 acres of new meadow has been sown.
40:54I'm really lucky that I've actually been involved with this at my home up in North Wales.
40:58So we've got the Conway Coronation Meadow, the new meadow that's been seeded there.
41:02And to be honest, it's been an absolute joy for me to see that evolution of that meadow.
41:08It's only when you do it and do it yourself that you realise what's involved
41:12and that joy of seeing this meadow blossom in front of your very eyes.
41:15It's amazing.
41:22Whilst many of the Coronation Meadows have been preserved for a long time,
41:27some of them centuries, a few have been made recently.
41:31And we went to the Lincolnshire Wolves to visit one of the Coronation Meadows
41:36that is the result of the work of Harry Turner, who took it upon himself
41:41to rectify the situation of vanishing meadows in his area and create his own.
41:54It's an area of outstanding natural beauty.
41:57I know that's a fairly well-used phrase, but it really is a little bit something out of the ordinary.
42:07There's acres and acres and acres, but there wouldn't have been if I hadn't sown the seed and planted the plants.
42:18My name is Harry Turner and I live in Louth in Lincolnshire.
42:23I'm 87 and a bit. I'll be 88 in November.
42:30The Wildflower Meadow, it's a meadow now, but it was an arable field.
42:38There's 60 acres of it and it's been growing barley and wheat for, I would think, at least 60 years.
42:48I had been thinking about this for many years, about wildflowers.
42:54There's lots of people in Lincolnshire that are used to seeing all these wildflowers.
43:00They realised they were disappearing and they were disappearing fast.
43:10Well, my involvement goes back for about 18 years, I reckon.
43:1618 years, I reckon. The Wildlife Trust had bought this meadow.
43:22It was going on for 60 acres, but then we've got it, but what are we going to do with it?
43:30Somebody out of the group says, we haven't got any flower-rich chalk downland.
43:39There's a chap here volunteering. He said he reckons he can have a go and really this is the result.
43:46Flower-rich chalk downland, just the four words,
43:50and that's the four words I have kept in my mind for the last 18 years.
43:59I made a fairly big mistake for a start. I thought, well, cowslips, I'll have to grow them in pots.
44:06125, I think. Three years later, yeah, three years later,
44:12the cowslips had grown, made nice little plants, so I took them up to Redhill and planted them and
44:22well thought, well done, boy, that looks great. But when next day, to admire these flowers,
44:30the rabbits had dug the lot up. The rabbits, they dug the lot all,
44:34and I put them in a row, which I should never have done anyway.
44:39There's a mistake you make when you start doing, taking job on like this, aren't there, really?
44:44Now, I sow everything from seed, and I try to aim for about four acres per year,
44:50and I have been doing that for a number of years now.
44:58Harry is a remarkable man. He's absolutely fantastic. I met Harry 15 years ago,
45:07and he was given the objective of managing this site as producing a flower-rich chalk downland,
45:15and he's worked tirelessly ever since.
45:18Well, I brought this, but I think I'm wasting my time with the looks of this lot over here, surely.
45:24Harry has made a huge difference to this site, but also he's in the family of the volunteers
45:32for the Wildlife Trust. Without help from people like Harry and similar people,
45:38we just wouldn't be able to do what we do with our sites that we've done, so he's had a huge impact.
45:45Well, this is how I planted many of the ones you see now in full flower.
45:53Do like all good gardeners do, make it fit.
45:55There we are, look. Looks like it's been growing for years, doesn't it?
46:03And Mr Rabbit can come and dig it out if he wants.
46:08Chalk downland, the habitat has just been reduced by nearly 99% over the last 100 years or so,
46:16so our goal was to really try to restore this site into something of what it used to look like
46:23100 years ago. Most of it is down to Harry, and to be able to do that by yourself is pretty fantastic.
46:36It's a challenge, I know, but it's not hard work, it's something you like doing.
46:42One of the main reasons I started doing it, the insects, especially the butterflies up on the
46:48walls here, was getting less and less, and they rely on the wildflowers. Well, I stand in amazement
46:57really to just look at these wildflowers, and it's not just these, because when these die down,
47:03they'll go to seed. The plants you see as green, lovely green clumps like that, they will then
47:10come on, they'll put on their show. So we shall keep going on, I'm hoping to go on for another,
47:17I said I would go until I was 90, so I think I can whack it till I'm 90, so I hope so anyway.
47:26I feel pleased to be the man who started the Lincolnshire Coronation Meadow, and I hope
47:30somebody in the next few years will feel the same as I did all those 18 years ago,
47:39and say that's somebody we'll want to keep going.
47:52That shows that an individual of any age can make a real difference, and if you want to go and see
48:01a coronation meadow near you, if you go to our website, you will find out where they all are.
48:06Now we saw at Trentum how that you can take meadow flowers and use them in a number of ways
48:11in a garden, and do something really interesting, and Carol is creating a border in her own garden
48:18based upon the relatives of our native wildflowers.
48:28At a time when so many of our native habitats are disappearing, our gardens take on an even
48:35more important role. My garden is packed with flowers. Some of them are native, but many of
48:43them are exotic. In other words, they don't originate in the British Isles, but they still
48:49offer pollen and nectar to beneficial insects of every shape and size.
48:56One of the most important considerations when you're thinking about planting for wildlife,
49:01particularly for pollinators, is how densely you can pack them in together. The more you've got,
49:07the more your garden is going to be an oasis, a restaurant where insects are going to flock.
49:14Secondly, it chooses many different flower types, and it's going to be a great way to
49:19where insects are going to flock. Secondly, choose as many different flower forms as you
49:25possibly can, so big flowers like this cosmos that wave like flags. But on the other hand,
49:33things like this umbel, this dainty olea, will lure lots and lots of insects in,
49:39and they'll all be able to feed at the same time on these plateaus of flowers.
49:44And beside it, geranium presents. It's got big single flowers, offers nectar and pollen,
49:51and nearly all the flowers are actually marked with pollen lines to lure those insects in.
49:57Which brings us on to the third point, which is try and make sure that there's something
50:02that those insects are going to be able to feast on right the way through the year.
50:07So once you've chosen your plants, and plenty of them, it's time to put them together. Not only
50:14are you going to please all those pollinators, but you're also going to create something beautiful
50:20for yourself. Well, I seldom get the opportunity to actually plant a whole new bed in this garden,
50:35and I'm going to fill it full of plants that pollinating insects will adore.
50:41This is salvia caradonna, and I love these tall spikes and lots of small flowers,
50:47so lots of different insects will be able to feast at the same time.
50:56That's a start. I've got loads more to plant.
51:00Look at this smorgasbord of gorgeous plants. There's this Aster, Fricartii Monk. It's got this
51:07wonderful display of these big blue daisies, right the way through from June until October.
51:15And if you look very carefully, this is where the business happens in the centre.
51:19So lots and lots of separate tiny flowers compose this beautiful garden.
51:25Lots and lots of separate tiny flowers compose this central disc, and they're called disc florets.
51:33And here's another plant that's at the top of the insect's agenda. It's a scabius. It's a hybrid
51:40scabius, but very closely related to lots of our native scabius. Once these flowers have fallen,
51:47they'll leave behind them these seed heads, and eventually those seed heads will sort of separate,
51:53and the seed will drop to the floor. Birds love it, and one of the great things about
51:58it, as far as insects are concerned, is that it produces flower after flower after flower.
52:04Now this is an Eryngium. It's called big blue. What's so beautiful about it is these tremendous
52:10flowers. You can already see this whole collection of different flowers that are opening, and in this
52:17case guarded, because right around the edge are these very, very sharp bracts. So it ensures that
52:25insects can get in there, and also no herbivore is going to come along and chew it off. Well, I dare
52:32say these plants in my barrow will be visited by all sorts of creatures if we left them there,
52:38but the important thing is to get them into the ground. So that's coming in.
52:45It's lovely with this Alchemilla. It's perfect for tiny little insects.
52:50Masses of these small flowers. I think it's an ideal companion.
53:07All these plants are fairly straightforward and accommodating to cultivate.
53:12If you find that they're pot bound, just break up the roots,
53:15and that will encourage them to get established much more quickly.
53:30I think these look quite good. I mean, this is just a small corner, but you could just pick two
53:35or three of these plants, put them together in a pot, and it wouldn't matter that you didn't have
53:41a garden. Well, what was just an empty space a short while ago is soon going to be a buzz.
53:48It'll be a hive of activity.
53:58One of the greatest joys is sharing our gardens with other creatures.
54:03The benefits of providing flowers for pollinating insects are mutual. On the one hand,
54:09they get the pollen and nectar that they need for their survival. On the other hand,
54:15we get the benefits of enjoying beautiful flowers accompanied by the fluttering of
54:21butterflies' wings and the hum of contented insects.
54:25Some really good ideas there for making a beautiful border that is good for insects.
54:31Now, here are some things that you can do to encourage the wildlife in your garden this
54:38weekend, and a few things that you might not do as well.
54:55It's not too late to sow late flowering annuals like calendula and cornflowers
55:02to extend the season and give insects pollen and nectar to feed on over the coming months,
55:08as well as adding some late color to your borders.
55:25Wildlife of all kinds needs ground cover for protection. So, it's a good idea to leave
55:31spring bulb foliage to die back and not be too tidy in your garden. So, leave areas of your
55:37lawn uncut and don't worry about a few weeds around the edges because it's all great habitat
55:43for insects.
55:44Solitary bees, beetles, and invertebrates of all kinds will welcome a ready-made home.
55:51So, cut off some short lengths of old bamboo canes and tie them together to make a simple bee hotel.
56:01Place it somewhere in your garden and watch the wildlife come.
56:05And finally, sit back, relax, and enjoy your garden. And if you've left a few areas to go wild,
56:13your local wildlife will thank you for it.
56:34Now, I don't think it's over yet because I've got one more job for absolutely everybody this
56:46weekend. Trevor, over to you. Well, this is every flower count and we want people to literally count
56:52the number of flowers on their lawns so that we can work out how much nectar they're producing
56:57and how many bees they support. So, you simply place down a square meter quadrat. I've got some
57:04bamboo canes here. Does it matter where you put it? No, you select a random place on the lawn,
57:08count the number of flowers in there, and then we'll tell you how much nectar they're producing
57:13and how many honeybees that will support. I know you've done a survey here. How many honeybees can
57:18be supported in this meadow? This amazing meadow can support 152,000 honeybees in just one day.
57:26Right, well, if we compare that to what the average lawn can support, I think that will be
57:30an eye-opener. By collecting and sharing information about what's growing in our lawns,
57:36this survey will help to demonstrate the huge potential that lawns have in supporting
57:42biodiversity. Hopefully, the results will encourage us to mow or weed a little less
57:48to let more wildflowers bloom in our gardens. And to get all the details, if you want to know
57:54how to do it and what to do with your information, simply go to our website. Now, Trevor, thank you
58:00very much indeed. It's been a pleasure. Well, I hope you feel inspired now to help preserve the
58:15amazing wildflower meadows that we do have and also to create something in your own garden
58:23that can continue that link right across the country.
58:28I will be back in my own garden next week, but not on Friday.
58:32It'll be next Wednesday the 17th at nine o'clock. So join me then. Bye-bye.
58:53Bye-bye.