Pupils plant boost for local wildflower site

School pupils have helped give a boost to a local Wildflower site to help it bloom with health for next season.

Following the Council’s declaration of a climate and ecological emergency in 2019, this project is part of the council’s ongoing commitment to enhancing biodiversity across the county, with nearly 60 sites, including highway verges, footpath edges, cycleways and amenity grasslands, now being managed to create wildflower meadows.

These sites, along with the 11 roadside nature reserves, equate to about 30 football pitches worth of Denbighshire grassland managed as native wildflower meadows.

As well as protecting wildflowers, the meadows are also supporting the welfare of native insects to the county area.

In order to give these areas a winter boost and provide more instant food for wildlife next year, the team has been working with the Bodfari Woodland Skills Centre to grow wildflower plants from locally collected seed.

To help plant these wildflowers in a verge at Llanrhaeadr, Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch pupils joined the council team to add over 500 plants to the site. The wildflowers the children planted included Foxglove, Red Campion and Black Knapweed, all popular plants for bees and butterflies.

Cllr Tony Thomas, the Council’s lead member for Housing and Communities said: “Our wildflower meadows play a very important part in the Council’s commitment to biodiversity and supporting the preservation of our native flowers and insect population across the county. It is important to note that these projects do take time as the flowers establish themselves on the sites. However, as seen across the county with the project the results are really supporting local biodiversity.

“We are really grateful to the help Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch pupils gave us in giving a boost to this local site and we are looking forward to seeing these new additions bloom next year. These flowers will spread and attract a range of insects to the verge. “

All of the Council’s wildflower sites are managed in line with Plantlife’s Managing Grassland Road Verges guidelines which sees the grass cutting at these sites prohibited between March and August each year, giving wildflowers enough time to grow, flower, and set seed.

Each site is then cut after August and cuttings collected to reduce soil fertility and provide the wildflowers with the best conditions possible.

This project has also been funded by Welsh Government, through the Local Nature Partnerships Cymru ENRaW project.

To find out more about the wildflower meadows across Denbighshire visit the following link >>> https://www.denbighshire.gov.uk/en/environmental-health/climate-and-ecological-change/wildflower-meadow-project.aspx