On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 16:46:04 +0000, K wrote:

lloyd writes
Yes I think that's quite apparent now. Seems such a waste. However I
shall try and find out who owns the land and talk to them about
planting some wildlife trust approved wildflowers. The ditches are cut
once a year, and the verges twice, but the ends of the ditches are
left completely wild, so they may let us plant something there
hopefully which would be nice.

You might be interested n the work of the Plantlife charity. Their 'Back
from the Brink' programme aims to bring 'back from the brink' seriously
rare flowers, which they do largely by creating the conditions for the
plants to regenerate from the seed bank in the soil where they used to
grow. For example, they've had some success with starfruit, which relied
on cattle coming to drink at the pond and churning up the mud at the
edge. In some sites where Plantlife have replicated this mudchurning,
they have had starfruit reappear.

http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/plant...k-from-brink.h
tml

Being the age I am, I can remember when road verges were routinely mown
short,

I was a bit cynical when the councils started to leave them alone for
much of the year, but they are a real boon when left to grow. I notice
on the A1 Northbound last year they had about 5 miles of row upon row
of what looked like tall daisies, all different colours. Looked lovely
and I was tempted, but now I'm glad I never.

Be a nice idea if we could adopt a mile of verge all around the
country for wildlflowers. Funny how we get used to everything being
trimmed and cut.

and it is a real pleasure to see the wildflowers returning to our
verges, some of them, obviously, planted as a deliberate re-seeding of
wildflowers, but some of them reappearing by themselves (for example a
roadside colony of frog orchids which certainly weren't part of any
planting programme)

And much as I love daffodils, I do get a wee bit bored of the King
Alfred types creeping along the road verges at the edges of so many
villages.

I love everything. My best plants in my garden were the buttercups,
daisies and some flowers on the hedges for attracting wildlife. Made
it awkward cutting around the groups of flowers but lovely to see the
insects appreciate it.

*Adopt a mile of verge* has a certain ring about it