Conservation & Ecology
Wildflower areas will enhance any facility by introducing a splash of colour, whilst also ‘doing their bit’ for the local and national ecology. John Handley, Maxwell Amenity’s Technical Manager, details the history of such areas, their importance in the scheme of things and offers some handy advice on choosing the correct species for your soil type
T
he ice age that occurred 10,000 years ago saw massive ice sheets scour much of Britain’s flora clean. The south of the country was a tundra landscape; frozen solid in
the winter, but enabling grasslands to flourish during brief summers. As the temperatures increased, species made their way back to the UK from Europe. During the Mesolithic period (10,000 to 5,000 BC), meadow-like grasslands and marshes existed as part of natural forests. Man began to shape his environment from
the start of the Neolithic period and into the Bronze age (5,000 to 2,500 years ago) by lopping trees for fodder before the introduction of metal tools, whilst non- woody vegetation was grazed. With the Iron Age came the introduction of metal tools, such as scythes, that were used to mow meadows, so that livestock would have fodder for the winter. The 16th Century witnessed
improvements in farming, such as the management of water-meadows, crop rotation and enclosure. During this period, Britain expanded its empire and plant collectors brought back species, some of which became important commercially, whilst others found a home, sometimes unwanted, within our countryside. From 1860 to 1945, the invention of the mowing machine and the internal combustion engine were step changes that radically changed land management. Modern farming can be traced back to the creation of the Haber-Bosch process, the manufacture of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, enabling the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to today’s 7 billion, along with the now familiar agricultural intensification that comes with the use of pesticides. Farmers can be rightly proud of the
increases in productivity, which has been achieved through ploughing, drainage, increased fertiliser and herbicide application, and earlier cutting for silage. Unfortunately, the costs for other species have been high. Wildflower meadows, once one of the most
common habitats in lowland UK, have been almost eradicated, with over 95% being ‘improved’. The largest pollution source within our
environment is agriculture, primarily through the leaching of nitrates and phosphates, but also pesticides such as metaldehyde or pathogens such as Cryptosporidium. It is easy to see farmers as the villains of the piece, but they are merely responding to a demand from the householder for cheap food. Meadows evolved over the last 2,500
years under the influence of man and were a key component of traditional farming, often more valued than other land. They were worked manually with iron and wooden tools and used only the energy and fertility
equivalent in species density to some of the most diverse areas of our planet, such as the rainforests. Wildflower areas are important because of the impact they have upon so many other species, including us. Livestock required fodder and traditional
farming was powered by horses, therefore an important proportion of productive land was given over to meadows. Meadows were generally small (under 12 hectares) with about 80% of all settlements having meadows occupying between 4-10% of available farmland, depending on location. Meadows were a small but vital part of the landscape connecting into woodlands and unimproved areas. Their distribution was nationwide and, as such, different types of meadows occurred in different areas: mainly
generated locally. As a consequence, a wide variety of species co-existed simply because no single species could dominate. Succession to scrub and then to woodland was prevented through the annual hay cut, favouring non-woody, herbaceous, species that could grow and set seed before this important event in the farming calendar, typically mid-summer. Failure to effectively set seed naturally
precluded a species from a meadow and the long-term consistent management of meadows (there is written evidence that some meadows have been managed in a consistent manner since being recorded in the Domesday book in 1086) led to the gradual increase of diversity, with up to forty species of flowering plant per metre growing in our most species-rich meadows: this is
It is easy to see farmers as the villains of the piece, but they are merely responding to a demand from the householder for cheap food
” PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 I 105
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