Benefits of our wildflower understory

June/July 2023

As we begin to move out of the Summer months towards Autumn, the visual appearance of the project has changed with many of the understory wildflowers losing their colour and beginning to look much less attractive.

The above photographs are a couple of months apart but we have created another wonderful facet of the environmental journey as we head towards the darker months. Many of the seed heads are still intact and are holding their seeds while they mature and ripen.

When we gently shake them, it reveals a high level of seeds, as can be seen below.

We have created a food source for songbirds and small mammals over winter. This adds to the environmental jigsaw we are helping to create with the project. It is essential for farmland birds to produce nesting sites, insect life to feed young chicks and over wintered food sources to allow adults to survive and emerge stronger in the spring. Without all three elements, we cannot expect the decline of farmland birds to be reversed but here we believe we are beginning to put structures in place to reverse the trend.

We make no apologies for being a commercial concern but understand we are also sequestering high levels of CO2, stabilising previously intensely-farmed land, increasing water-holding capacity in soils – thus making rainfall into ‘effective’ rainfall - and enhancing the local environment creating positive increases in wildlife. The decline of farmland birds since the war has been dramatic but we are excited with our efforts to reverse this within the plantations.

JP | Sept 2023

August/September 2023

Collecting seeds