Seeds planted for new wildflower meadow

Well Meadows in Bridgnorth had been earmarked by the Buglife's B-Lines Project, and this week volunteers and organisers manned the tools and sowed the seeds that should see a carpet of wildflowers bloom next year.

Kaitlyn Elverson of Buglife said: "It went really well. We had a few people come down to help us out and it was all in all a good day.

"Normally we would have some machinery that would have turned the soil over ahead of time, but with access to Well Meadow being difficult we had to do it by hand.

"We had rakes and other tools, it was a lot of hard work to scrape back the grass and leave the bare soil underneath."

This is the optimal time of year to plant wildflower seeds as the cooling weather, and perhaps a nip of frost, will help get the established.

Kaitlyn added: "Having the bare soil gives the seeds the best chance of establishing themselves, and now is the best time of year to plant them as the weather gets colder.

"We planted lots of Yellow Rattle, which is called a 'meadow-maker' as it out-competes a lot of grasses that would normally take over. It makes a better environment for other wildflowers to grow too.

"We added in some other plug plants like St John's Wort to give a bit of diversity too."

The plan for the B-Lines Project is to plant wildflower meadows the length of the entire country, creating in effect a 'highway' of flowers for bees to traverse.

Meanwhile Much Wenlock Town Council is crowdfunding to create a wildflower meadow of its own in accordance with its ground management plan.