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Wildflower growing trial inspires nature conservation from home

A selection of the wildflowers grown by volunteers.

This summer, green-fingered volunteers have turned their houses and gardens into plant nurseries, growing native wildflowers for Lancashire Wildlife Trust, as part of a trial to involve people in nature conservation at home.

After nurturing the plants from seed and tending to them for several months, the volunteers have begun planting the flowers at Lunt Meadows Nature Reserve, near Crosby. Lunt Meadows is a flood storage reservoir that doubles as a wetland nature reserve and is a haven for wildlife. Its regionally significant wetland bird numbers include Biodiversity Action Plan, regionally scarce and red list species such as skylark, avocet, lapwing, bittern and barn owl.

As well as enhancing the visitor experience, increasing plant biodiversity and providing habitat and food sources for many pollinators, it is hoped that the wildflowers will increase the insect population in the meadows as well, in turn providing more food for birds, dragonflies and small mammals who live on the reserve. Lapwing chicks, in particular, rely on a good population of beetles to munch on as they are growing up.

A lapwing chick hiding amongst dew-covered grass

Lapwing chick by Margaret Holland

So far, over two hundred native wildflowers have been planted out on the reserve this month, including species such as knapweed, ox-eye daisy and ragged robin. These species are perennial, meaning they will grow back every year, and hopefully spread throughout the meadows.

In previous years, volunteers had directly planted small plugs of wildflowers on the reserve, but many of these were pulled up by magpies. Growing the wildflowers from seed at home, meant that volunteers could tend to the plants until they were bigger and stronger than plugs, meaning magpies could not pull them up. It also enabled people to support Lunt Meadows from home and work it in around their own schedule, which was especially helpful when lockdown restrictions were still in place, or people were unable to visit the reserve. 

LWT staff put together growing packs, with seeds, instructions, plant pots and compost provided to the volunteers. All of the compost was peat-free, and generously provided for free from Dalefoot compost and Melcourt Sylvagrow.

LWT staff put together growing packs, with seeds, instructions, plant pots and compost provided to the volunteers. All of the compost was peat-free, and generously provided for free from Dalefoot compost and Melcourt Sylvagrow.

Overall, 14 people volunteered for the trial; a mixture of existing volunteers, staff and members of local organization, Soroptimist International, Crosby. SI Crosby is part of a worldwide organisation of women that aims to advance human rights and the status of women – at local, national and international level – though service projects, and they are partners with LWT on the Mesolithic and Modern Life Project, based at Lunt Meadows and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Chris Smith, President of SI Crosby, said: “This was a simple, practical way of working with the Wildlife Trust. We all really enjoyed contributing – in this small way – to our local environment.”

A wildflower called ragged robin, with pink ragged-looking petals, growing in the meadow at Lunt

Ragged robin is among the species planted in the meadows at Lunt.

There are still more wildflowers to plant out over the coming weeks, including plants from volunteers in the Trust’s peatlands team, who are kindly donating knapweed and meadow crane’s-bill plants to Lunt that they are growing as part of a peat-free compost trial.

Cheryl Ashton, Project Manager at Lunt Meadows, said: “We are really thankful to everyone who volunteered for this growing trial – they have all helped us to improve the habitats at Lunt Meadows and we hope that they have enjoyed the process. We can’t wait to see how the wildflower meadows gets on next summer. We are also thrilled that this trial has inspired others to engage people to grow wildflowers too, both inside and outside of the Trust.”

To find out more about Lunt Meadows, visit our reserve page.

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