As part of this year’s ‘No Mow May’ initiative, we are once again offering nature a helping hand by restricting grass cutting in selected parts of our Sidmouth sanctuary to give pollinators a head-start as the weather starts to warm up in the early summer months.
With some plants and their pollinators in sharp decline across the country, leaving areas where they can thrive together is good for both flora and fauna. It offers smaller plants the chance to flower, which in turn provide food for pollinating insects.
In 2022, the Butterfly Garden at our Sidmouth sanctuary was bursting full of plants and buzzing to the sound of insects after being left unmown for a few weeks. Among the plant species that we recorded flowering included oxeye daisy, fleabane, cat’s-ear and self-heal, to name but a few – each playing its part in providing pollen and nectar to foraging insects.
Planted back in 2016 by our very first conservation volunteers, the Butterfly Garden was sown with a wide variety of species to provide pollinators with nectar and pollen throughout the seasons.
Species such knautia, salvia, buddleia, honeysuckle, roses and pulmonaria were chosen, and we have since recorded many different species of bees, hoverflies and butterflies frequenting their flowers.
Helen Cavilla, one of our Ecology and Conservation officers, said: “Leaving uncut areas is possibly the easiest wildlife enhancement you can do, and benefits so many species of wildlife.
“It is a real delight watching the bees, butterflies and countless other pollinators visiting these ‘wild places’, while the sight of pretty wildflowers, especially species making an appearance for the first time, is rather special too.”
‘No Mow May’ has been an initiative from international conservation charity Plantlife for a number of years. It encourages people to do their bit to help wildlife thrive, such as asking local councils to let their verges grow a bit longer and encouraging gardeners to park up their mower during the month and give nature a head-start.
Lawns are often overlooked when considering wildlife enhancements, but they are a valuable habitat, and with an estimated 15 million gardens in Britain, our lawns have the potential to become major sources of nectar.
To show our visitors that we are purposely leaving areas for nature, rather than forgetting to mow them, we are including information boards, which explain the benefits of leaving areas for wildlife, and perhaps encouraging some of them to do the same at home.
Over lockdown, when the sanctuary was completely closed to visitors, nature had the chance to properly take over for a few months. During this time the conservation team carried out surveys and spotted species they had not seen on the memorial walkways and in the Butterfly Garden before, including a pyramidal orchid and red bartsia.
Following the findings during lockdown, our walkways are now being cut to a schedule that improves structural diversity, such as creating areas of different heights and densities of vegetation, as this encourages a much greater diversity of wildflower species.
The maintenance team work incredibly hard to maintain the footpaths, and the rewards are clear to see. The revised mowing schedules of the miles of walkways at our Slade and Trow farms have allowed wildflowers to bloom in the margins, and last year southern marsh orchids were discovered for the first time in the uncut margins of the memorial walkways on our Sidmouth site.
During our wildlife surveys on the walkways, our Conservation team and their volunteers have spotted a wide range of invertebrates, birds and mammals benefiting from this floral diversity.
The benefits of our walkway management have not only provided increased habitat and feeding grounds for pollinators such as bees, hoverflies, beetles and butterflies, but also for predatory invertebrates such as dragonflies, and spiders. The grassy margins have also allowed for herbivores, such as grasshoppers, crickets and caterpillars, to flourish too.
