Wild Flowers have been very much in the news in recent times and if you have seen or heard the reports in the press and on the Radio or the TV you will have some idea of their importance and how the loss of them is causing concern.
Since the end of the first world war modern agricultural methods started to see the decline of our natural hay meadows and as the threat of a second world war became apparent the government told all the country's farmers that they must grow more food because a lot of our food was imported from other parts of the world and we could no longer rely on those supplies reaching us. This became the start of the loss of thousands of acres of farmland that were once our traditional hay meadows. The importance of these wild flower meadows are the loss of the habitat that they created for the birds, bees, butterflies and insects as well as the loss of what was once a rich, colourful and diverse habitat for many forms of wildlife.
The Good News.
Many organisations are putting pressure on the government to help reinstate as many areas as possible as Wild Flower Meadows.
The Wild Flowers help to capture astonishing amounts of carbon.
They can help and improve the quality and fertility of the soil.
Some provide us with medicines and remedies that help to heal us.
They can help protect our shorelines, regulate water flow and prevent flooding.
And they are aesthetic and beautiful to look at.
The Bad News.
Every county in the UK is losing, on average, one species of wild flower plants every two years.
Every county in the UK has lost many of its Wild Flower Meadows, Staffordshire has lost more than 65% of its meadows, Worcestershire 75% and Derbyshire 51%.
The Foxglove.
Of all the wild flower plants that I could have chosen to write about for this article, I have chosen the Foxglove. This plant is one of the most important species of wild flowers that could soon be on the danger list.
The common Foxglove ( Digitalis purpurea ) comes in to flower during the month of June, it was said that bad fairies gave the bell-shaped flowers to foxes to wear on their paws as gloves so that they could silently creep up on chickens to catch them, hence its name foxglove. They can still be found growing in our countryside in woodlands and in the hedgerows around the fields. The seeds can remain dormant in the soil for many years waiting for the right conditions to make them spring into life. The foxglove is a biennial plant, that is to say that in its first year it only produces a clump of leaves but in its second year it sends up a long stem covered in beautiful pink-purple flowers. This plant is totally dependent on our Bumblebee for its survival, its blooms have evolved to be attractive to the bumblebee which lands on the large bottom lip of the flower and then follows the spots on the inside, which leads them to the nectar.
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| A Bumblebee landing on a Foxglove. |
Without this interaction between the bumblebee and the foxglove, the foxglove would die out and without wild flowers the bumblebee and many other insects including butterflies and bees will also become extinct. The foxglove has also insured itself against bad weather during its flowering period. The blooms start to open from the bottom of the plant first, slowly moving up the stem so that it takes several weeks for the flowers at the top of the stem to finally open. This ensures that if the weather is particularly bad and there are not many bumblebees around to pollinate the plant, there will still be flowers open to pollinate if and when the conditions improve.
Wild Flower Seed.
If after reading this article you would like to create a wild flower area then for one of the largest suppliers of seed go to Hurrells web site; www.wickedwildflowers.co.uk. Here you will be able to see what seeds are available and read about the habitat each plant requires to survive.
