Today Plantlife launch a campaign to stop councils destroying the wild flowers of roadside verges through inappropriate cutting. The wild plant charity says that they have been inundated by complaints from the public about verges being cut this year just as the flowers appear – giving them no chance to set seed.
, via Wikimedia Commons”]
Plantlife Chief Executive, Victoria Chester says “What’s not to like about a road verge full of wild flowers? Beautiful, culturally significant, colouring our towns and countryside alike and heralding the changing seasons… And yet, they are under attack: flowers are routinely being mown down in full bloom, or sprayed off with poisons as ‘weeds’ and smothered with cuttings. Over time, only nettles and coarse grasses can survive this onslaught. As the flowers disappear, so does the verge’s value for wildlife. And we lose something too; knots of primroses and violets in early spring, the patriotic red, white and blue of campion, stitchwort and bluebells, or the midsummer golds and purples of orchids, columbine or lady’s bedstraw. These flowers, with us since the last ice age, are on the edge – it’s time to cherish them.”
Plantlife have discovered that more than 75% of the councils contacted cut their verges multiple times over the spring and summer, with not one of them collecting cuttings as part of their routine management. Councils are mowing verges in their care too early, too often and leaving the cuttings to lie. This means that flowers are not being able to set seed and they are swamped with the mowed material being dumped on the verges – which exacerbates the problem through acting as a fertiliser. If this continues, the fear is that the flower-rich verges which brighten our countryside will turn into banks of nettles, docks and coarse grasses.
The justification for cutting verges is road safety which means that councils are scared stiff not to cut, or to cut less frequently, in case a road accident happens. This is despite the fact that cutting verges is an expensive operation, costing many councils hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. At a time of austerity one might have thought that looking to find sensible safe ways to reduce the cost of this activity would be just the sort of thing that a cash-strapped council ought to be doing to make our money stretch a little further.
It makes sense, although I bet some of even this activity is questionable, to cut verges at junctions and corners to improve visibility but many verges are routinely scalped along straight bits of road with perfect visibility – it looks more like an unthinking war on plants than a sensible accident-lessening management regime.
Next week, probably Monday now, this site will have a Guest Blog from Norfolk resident Sarah Pettegree on this very subject – don’t say that this blog isn’t on the ball!
And I recall that when I blogged about kek, cow parsley or Queen Anne’s lace a little while ago one of the comments then was about the destruction of flowers on roadside verges.
It seems to me that Plantlife has caught the mood and the moment with this campaign. Do you have any photographs of wrecked verges? Do you have thoughts on the way forward? Let me know please.
Please support Plantlife’s campaign (if you don’t get to the site easily try clearing your browser cache – that worked for me).
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At the moment West Sussex County Council seem to have an enlightened view of things, road sides a mass of Oxeye Daisies and long grasses. They have a system of notable road verges which, I think, have their own management prescriptions. My local verges in the village of Washington have Common spotted, Pyramidal and Bee Orchids growing amongst the other wild flowers. Thinking about it maybe I should email them about it to let them know that they are doing a good job here!
Lee – welcome! That’s good to hear. And yes, praise those who are doing it right!
Great that you are blogging about this issue, Mark! It seems that just one cut a year without removing the cuttings does not inhibit the growth of wildflower seeds. A local farmer manages his wildflower margin by one cut in late August, but does not remove the cuttings. (Willing to provide location, if helpful. Removing cuttings after seeds have dropped is okay, too.) The wildflowers are abundant, probably because the seeds have time to drop from the cuttings. Cutting in late August also helps invertebrates to complete their life-cycle and so provides even more insects for birds; cover for small mammals, so food for owls, etc. This wildflower margin has a profusion of butterflies, too. Rather than designating specific roadside verges, it would be better for councils to adopt a policy of one cut a year for all, apart from designated areas managed for specific flora. When I was growing up our roadside verges were glorious throughout the spring, summer and autumn — truly making our land a ‘green and pleasant land’ and they were cut once-yearly or not at all!
Apparently by chance, the mowing dates of the verges nearby has changed and the first cut is now before the orchids appear, and the next, after they have flowered, which is good. An area marked off because it had a greater density of orchids is now overgrown with coarse grasses because it is not cut at all now! Is it really that complicated?
There are still hectares and hectares of short grass (quite good for the nesting oystercatchers) which if managed differently, and I dare say more cheaply would be so much better for wildlife, and much more attractive.
Don’t even get me started on sight-lines and safety; the local roundabout on the trunk road system has just had ‘baffles’ installed on the approach seemingly to deliberately reduce visibility and obscure sight-lines, I presume to reduce approach speeds and thereby improve safety. Perhaps flower rich roadside verges could actually be a safety feature as traffic slows either because of poor visibility, or because vehicle ccupants are better enjoying the passing countryside.
Did I just hear a cuckoo?
Bimbling – thank you. I had the same thought about sight lines – well put.
For every tonne of green waste removed from a verge up to 850 kilos is water. What is the point of carting of all that water, using my money to pay for the vehicle, fuel, driver’s wages, Hi-Vis clobber and municipal green waste composting facility so that it can be mixed with shredded MDF and sold back to me as peat-free compost to poison all my seedlings? Leave it where it is.
There are certainly road safety issues – but judicious line-of-sight cutting could take care of it. I find that for every road verge site where tall stuff causes danger there are many privet or budleia hedges, bus shelters, garden walls or entire bungalows which should also be removed on the grounds of safety.
As a grassland management adviser I too have been exasperated by over zealous verge mowing too early in the season as it not only removes attractive flowers, but also takes away the habitat and vital nectar sources for bumblebees and other insects. Another beef is the insain herbicide spraying along kerb lines, even in our own semi-rural residential cul-de-sac (to which I will return at the end of this)!
Here in E Sussex the CC still operates a wildflower verge scheme whereby suitably qualified (ie. species-rich) verges have been designated and markers placed out to remind contractors to check their plans as they mow. This has worked quite well for what must be nearly 20 years now though there have been the inevitable mistakes.
In response to various comments I have seen recently it should be remembered that if verges aren’t cut, or are not cut often enough, grasses soon swamp wildflower species, so cutting should ideally mimic traditional hay meadow management – cut just after the main flowering is over, and ideally again in late Sep or Oct to remove the autumn growth – thereby mimicing aftermath grazing. Removing autumn grass growth in the autumn is the single most important thing as this benefits the following year’s spring flower growth. And ideally remove cuttings from this last cut, (or at least from the best verges as ESCC contractors have to do). The regime has to be kept simple though as contracts have to be written for several years at a time that cover hundreds of miles of verge.
Also, it is a bit of a myth that long-lived perennial wildflowers of grasslands need to drop their seed every year or even every few years. Only a few annuals need to drop seed annually such as Yellow Rattle, and of course if cutting is delayed and wildflowers are dropping their seeds so are all the grasses, in huge amounts! And the aim of managing any wildflower grassland for biodiversity is to discourage grass growth and allow the the herb content to compete!
Returning to the subject of herbiciding kerb lines, apparently in an effort to remove unsightly weeds from growing up between the cracks, the situation is invariably made worse by spraying! The spray always drifts onto the edge of the grass verge which is also killed. The resultant bare soil alongside the kerb then sprouts even more annuals such as mayweed, groundsel, sowthistle, annual meadow grass etc. that then look even more ‘untidy’, drop loads more seeds in the cracks and we have a vicious circle!
Ralph – great comment thanks
I think the thing that upsets me most is the sheer wasted opportunity. There is no economic reason for mowing these verges so regularly and they could so easily be managed for biodiversity gain (enhancing the council’s green credentials to boot). I drove past a wide verge in Weston-Super-Mare on Tuesday and was dismayed to see that it had been mown. Not just the area close to the road, but a 10m swathe (it was a very wide verge!) right up to the banks of an adjacent rhyne. This could have provided a great wildlife corridor and habitat for amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates (plus those species that prey on them).
Yes much too much verge cutting and when cut all the litter shows up a lot worse.
On a slightly related topic, I’d be interested to know what the position is with regard to farmland margins being mown by farmers. I’ve seen several local field margins that were full of wildflowers and presumably ground-nesting birds recently hacked down. Does anybody have any information about the legality of this practice?
Thanks
Rob,
As part of Cross Compliance all farmers claiming Single Payment Scheme (SPS) are required to maintain an uncultivated field margin measuring 2m from the centre of a hedge or 1m from the top of the bank of watercourse. No pesticides, fertilisers or manures should be applied to the margin which is known as the ‘protection zone’. These margins are required all fields 2ha or more in size, regardless of crop type. The rules however do not contain any restrictions on the frequency or timing or cutting. The link below will explain further:
http://rpa.defra.gov.uk/rpa/index.nsf/293a8949ec0ba26d80256f65003bc4f7/e2ef65c93d5a9199802573aa0053e7fb!OpenDocument
Farmers can also receive payments for providing extended field margins in addition to the SPS XC requirements through the Environmental Stewardship Scheme. These are usually 2,4 or 6m in width, the aim is to either create rough tussocky grass or margins sown with finer leaved grasses and wildflowers. As a general rule, the scheme rules do not allow these margins to be cut before mid-July (usually later) unless in exceptional circumstances e.g. controlling a severe weed infestation.
The link below should take you to the ELS handbook if you want any further info:
http://www.naturalengland.gov.uk/ourwork/farming/funding/es/els/usefuldocuments.aspx
Thanks for the clarification Joe, Dennis.
In addition no slurry should be applied within 10m of a watercourse. This is best practice everywhere, and mandatory in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones.
It is not just local authorities that are guilty of mismanaging verges, although reading some of the comments it does seem that many local councils are doing some good work. In my area I see plenty of privately owned verges which are over mown in the interests of ‘tidiness’. None more so than one just down the road from me, which used to be covered in cow parsley, knapweed, meadow- vetchling, tufted vetch and other flowering plants. Following a change of ownership, it now resembles a bowling green thanks to its moronic owner and his blasted sit-on lawn mower.
It also occurs to me that some of the larger verges dominated by improved grassland, would be better managed if they were sown with wild bird seed mix crops every year. Perhaps the money saved on the over management of species-rich verges could fund this?
There’s a big public education job to be done here also, because every year there are letters in our local paper from tidy-minded (or should that be tiny-minded?) souls complaining the verges have got too long and look a disgrace! And these include some very flowery ones! The public, Local Authorities, and mowing contractors all need to learn the difference between fertile species-poor / ryegrass verges that can indeed look a mess if left long (and are not great for wildlife), and the less fertile flowery grassland types that buzz with insects in early summer. It’s not hard to tell the difference – for a start if it has ox-eye daisy flowering on it (or orchids or actually any colourful species), then it will almost always have a lot more besides, and should be left for a later cut! Everyone can recognise ox-eye daisy, and I have been pushing this as an indicator over many years! I noticed this must have hit home locally as for the last couple of years many verges with flowering ox-eye and ladies smock were left uncut til later on, with the decision to ‘mow round’ obviously having been made by the man on the machine! Common spotted orchids have also been mown round. Having said that there are still far more exanples of flowers being cut off in their prime round here, but it does show ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’!
It is encouraging that various local projects ARE underway to replace boring grassland types with more flowery ones, including by Buglife’s ‘B-lines’ project – http://www.buglife.org.uk/conservation/currentprojects/Habitats+Action/B-Lines
And I only hope Plantlife and Buglife can work together on this issue and influence the public as well as the Local Authorities. As has already been said LAs need to save money big time, AND they have a duty to look after biodiversity so the time for change to benefit our wildflower verges has never been better!
Buglife fully supportive of Plantlife on this campaign. Plantlife has also been very engaged with our B-Lines work and together Buglife and Plantlife have developed guidelines on restoring flower rich grassland for pollinators.
Ralph
I do not think Ox eye daisy can be regarded as a good indicator species for a good wildflower verge. On the contrary ox eye daisy is regarded as a ruderal competitor which means that it rapidly colonises disturbed areas and subsequently can then hold it’s own amongst other competing species. We have shingle banks on our river which are almost monocultures of ox eye daisy. Cow parsley has a similar establishment strategy and can easily outcompete other plant species especially in response to higher nutrient levels. The RSPB reserve on Coll reflects this very well. Field borders of dense cow parsley provides excellent cover for corncrakes
I believe that insect diversity and especially abundance of species of moths and butterflies such as meadow brown and ringlet butterflies and chimney sweeper moths better indicates a good verge.
The presence of more than one species of orchid also seems to indicate good wildflower diversity.
Aha – I think we are both right! Here in the Weald the relatively nutrient-rich and moisture retentive clay soils tend to support such rank grass growth that the presence of ox-eye daisy indicates a more open sward where other plants can also thrive. Well drained shingles, ruderal areas, and other nutrient-poor soils are rather different, as many more (stress tolerant) species can thrive in the absence of dense grass growth, including ox-eye daisy! I think you would be right to choose different indicators in such situations, but it would help to include plant species that can be easily identified by the mower operator as they mow!
PS I meant to say, a lot of the ox-eye daisy commonly seen growing on motorway verges and in ruderal situations is non-British and much more vigorous than our native species, and I wonder if that is what you have there being so competitive.
Rob—I think it must be allowed in the scheme or checks would have stopped the practice.Have always thought these strips are fraught with problems as they are not wide enough to encourage farmers to sow wild bird seed mixtures and think farmers worried about weeds spreading from them into the crops and of course never going to happen in grassland anyway.
Always thought it would be much better to have a equal acreage in one area sown specially with wild bird food mixture.Personally think it is a case of the schemes need change.
Along the Carlisle to Barrow railway line, Network Rail have been spraying the trackside vegetation with herbicides for a number of years now.The herbicide seems to kill only those parts of shrubs and trees on which the spray lands. However certain plant species such as elder (Sambucus) seem to be completely killed off in the first year. Coppiced ash trees have been killed off bit by bit, year by year until many of the tree stumps are now completely dead. What was once a fantastic habitat for whitethroats, blackcaps, garden warblers, etc now holds no birds and the only plant species present seems to be horsetail (equisetum). Part of this rail track runs next to the Cumbrian Way footpath and is now quite an eyesore.
I was stunned this week to find the verges along one of my favourite local walks had been mown and the cuttings left to lie. This is not even a road, its a footpath along a disused railway line in a country park! Rich in wildlife, passing through woodland and along a stream, the nettles, buttercups, forget-me-nots etc all cut down. No apparent reason for this, the path is wide and well surfaced, with no encroachment by the plants and the only vehicle that uses the path is the van belonging to the park. Being an old railway line, its also very straight, so visibility cannot have been an issue. I was angry about it!
Someone’s idea of tidiness, which is all too common sadly. It is all the more annoying when a very narrow mowing could achieve the same effect (of appearing ‘cared for’). Maybe you can enlighten whoever was responsible?
Thank you Ralph, I shall!
Good to read that wildflower verges are getting a national profile. It must be 15 years ago that a very small group of us in East Powys got this subject on the Council Agenda. The Council thought we were bonkers [but I’d got used to that label] but with support from the local Wildlife Trust and a solid letter writing campaign in the local papers we did negotiate some improvements. We surveyed wildflower rich sections of verges in E and SE Radnorshire, the Council provided signs to enable to grass cutters to identify the sections. This was fine until the hedge slashers came along and smashed the signs! However, our efforts highlighted some problems – the soil in many verges is too rich, cutting and leaving debris enriches, promoting grass growth – result fewer wild flowers; variations in cutting times are needed to accommodate different groups of plants at different times of year, to name just 2. Contractors also need to be able to identify genuine wild plants – we had one lovely incident of a contractor cutting down a bank of red campion because he assumed they were garden escapes!!
Often verges are the last refuges for what were common wild flowers, but the verge is not always the ideal place for them – the soil can be too rich, under a hedge too shaded, in winter blasted with salt and grit, and always enriched by fuel pollutants.
I’m not that enthralled by the single species strips that appear along arable fields – swathes of oxeye daisies are lovely but acres of them? Not quite what biodiversity is all about surely.
Here in North Norfolk there does seem to be some policy for not mowing flowers on the verges – although the basis of this policy is not entirely clear! I think it might be based on colour – leave yellow flowers in spring, blue and pink ones in summer! It certainly would be wonderful if road verge cutting was massively curtailed – grasses may not be everyones cup of tea but even they have more wildlife value than nothing at all.
Stella – thank you for a great comment.
Hi Mark,
I am not sure if it is still the case; but during the early 90’s when I worked for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, a large proportion of their nature reserved were in fact grass verges. I though this was a fantastic idea and ethic, demonstrating that any amount of habitat (never-mind how small) was worth protecting.
Regards
Tristan
Tristan – welcome!
Combine the grass cuttings and hedge trimmings and you have a solid heat factor going to waste. Gather it all up and place in a silage clamp, add pipes and you can heat water and houses in your local village.
John – good point! Hadn’t thought of that.
This is a subject I’ve been involved with in the North East, and the barriers I and others have come across (over the last 20 years), to flourishing wild flower verges are:
Upfront capital cost – cuttings need to be ‘harvested’, plans need to be written, meetings have to be held, verges need to be surveyed.
Cost – transporting and disposing of the cuttings. This is the biggest stumbling block as local green composting infrastructure isn’t scalable. This is why small areas are tolerated to placate the vociferous ‘nature lovers’.
Residents – most people want tidy verges and view ‘long grass’ as a failure of the council to do their job. I’ve stood next to people looking at beautiful urban wild flower areas and all they see is an untidy litter trap full of dog crap. After ‘educating’ them they appear to change their outlook, but education is a huge task. Councillors and council officers have no rebuttal to these complaints due to lack of awareness of biodiversity.
Communication
Council officers will agree to alter cutting regimes but that information struggles to get through to the staff doing the cutting. This is the biggest reason why local community groups who setup wild flower areas get disillusioned and give up. Areas are created then the cutters move in and gang mow the area. Or they don’t cut at all. Or fail to rake off and remove cuttings. This is what I term the ‘maintenance trap’ and is the biggest failure of most community led environmental initiatives.
Lack of priority
Roads are crumbling, schools are needing repair…….biodiversity is near the bottom. Until nature is valued as part of the economy things are unlikely to change.
I could go on but wor lass wants a cuppa 🙂
Tim – great comment!
Once upon a time in Lolland-Falster, geese in coops were used to graze the verges outside every house, removing any need to collect cuttings and transport them to a composting facility, and the human-inedible vegetation was put to better use at Christmas, with red cabbage and potatoes, than merely providing a soft landing for cyclists.
We own and therefore need to maintain a fifty foot wide by 200 ft long roadside bank along a country lane in Dorset . We are unsure of the maintenance of this natural bank and would welcome advice on when or if it should be cut. The previous owners cut it once a year in October and left the cuttings in place . What are your experts thoughts ? Many thanks .