Our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects are dying out.
This giant insect workforce pollinate our crops,
and if they disappear, most of our favourite foods will vanish too.
It's a complex crisis, but poor nutrition is leaving our insect pollinators
vulnerable to pesticides and parasites.
I'm Sarah Raven, and I'm on a campaign to wake people up
and show everyone the simple steps we can all take to stop this quiet catastrophe.
The thing is, if we all make a conscious decision
to plant pollen and nectar-rich plants throughout the country,
together, we can get Britain buzzing again!
In this series, I'm going to be campaigning in our towns and cities...
Good morning, everybody.
..and showing everyone how we can make our urban landscapes,
our gardens and our flower displays
more friendly for bees and pollinators.
But first of all, I'm going to take on the biggest challenge of all,
the countryside.
There's a strange irony here.
Whereas we seem to have got better at looking after
our bees and butterflies in our towns and cities,
we're just not doing enough in the countryside.
It's like it's become the elephant in the room in this whole debate.
The countryside is huge and it's a complicated subject.
And so we all tend to feel powerless, like we can't do anything about it.
But actually, we can, and we've got to face it head-on.
So in this programme, over the course of a year,
I'm on a mission to fill our countryside with the wildflowers our pollinators need.
From village greens and churchyards to fields and farmland.
Our precious wildflowers are the unsung jewels in our nation's crown.
They're woven through our history, our heritage and our nation's identity.
And they support our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects
with a rich variety of pollen and nectar.
There's no doubt, when you're sitting in a place like this,
that wildflowers are exceptionally beautiful.
I think one of the reasons is that you just get this incredible joyous abundance.
I just like the en-masse colour.
But I think the thing about wildflowers is that they're just remarkably
tough and good doers.
You know, they're totally adapted to be here. They've evolved with Britain,
and they're the plants that we really want to treasure and look after.
But modern agriculture has transformed our countryside to meet our demands for food.
It's now estimated that we've lost a staggering 98% of our wildflower-rich habitats.
And added to that, we've come to rely on pesticides and herbicides.
Many scientists and conservationists now believe that these two factors
are making it hard for our wildflowers and our pollinating insects to survive.
It's a strange thing walking through a wheat field,
because when you sort of see it, as you pass it in a car or on a walk or whatever,
you feel that it's this beautiful productive thing,
but then if you actually sort of stop
and stand in a place like this,
there's just not a single bee,
there's not a hoverfly,
there's not a butterfly.
And it's because there are no wildflowers.
Before herbicides and before pesticides,
you would have had cornfield weeds right the way through this,
you would have had corn poppies and corn cockle and marigolds,
and lots of splashes of colour.
And the truth is, it's now really like a wildlife desert.
There's almost literally nothing here.
'But why should we care if our countryside isn't full of flowers
'and buzzing with honey bees, bumble bees and pollinating insects?
'Does it really affect the majority of us that live in towns and cities?'
I think it's only when you come to a supermarket, or wherever you do your food shopping,
that you can really concentrate and think about it,
and how important our insect pollinators are to our everyday diet.
And just when I'm standing here looking at all these things,
apples,
pears,
strawberries, raspberries,
nectarines,
peaches,
all things that require insect pollination.
And then, of course, there are others too,
more exotic things like avocadoes,
pomegranates, mangoes, coconuts, melons.
And that, in fact, is only the tip of the iceberg.
'Chris Shearlock, the Co-op's expert on sustainable food,
'gives a stark lesson in what the future holds.'
One of the things I was doing before you arrived
was to really do a shop for a family breakfast.
And the thing that immediately struck me was how dependant we would be as a family
on things that are insect pollinated that we eat, you know, all the time.
All the time. And if they're not completely reliant,
then they're certainly very helpful,
in terms of increasing yields and reducing prices and so on.
So it's very, very important.
I think if you want to illustrate this, it would be fun to take away
the things which are reliant upon insect pollination.
- So let's start. Strawberries. - Strawberries, yeah.
- The other berries? - Most definitely.
- Apples, peaches and nectarines. - Put them in the basket.
- We can't drink apple juice. - Apples are gone, or greatly reduced.
- Smoothies. - Smoothie. Absolutely, that's out.
- Things like fruit yogurt. - Yeah. Jam.
That's out of the window, isn't it?
Well, I'm not looking forward to breakfast now.
Am I allowed the rest, am I?
Er... No. There's actually a few more things in there
which need to come out, believe it or not.
We've got coffee here, very much reliant on bees and other insects for pollination.
- Is that right? - So, let's put the coffee in here.
- What else? You've got a chocolate spread... - It's really looking pretty bad!
Cocoa, believe it or not, requires bees for pollination,
so let's put the chocolate spread in there.
So, yeah, what you're left with is all the things which are wind pollinated or self pollinated.
So, basically, if you want your lovely cappuccino of a morning,
your pint of cider of an evening,
and a bar of chocolate, you're done for, aren't you?
That's absolutely right. A lot of the more interesting things to eat,
a lot of the more vibrant flavours are gone without bees and other insect pollinators.
What you're left with are things like porridge or bread.
So it's going to be a bit dull.
'So, in simple terms, without our bees and pollinating insects,
'our supermarket shelves would be unrecognisable.'
But there are things that we could do all across our countryside and farmland
to help reverse the declines and help our pollinators.
One of the great things about travelling on a bus in the countryside
is that you're really high up.
And, erm, I quite like botanising at about 30 miles an hour!
Much as it looks really beautiful on a beautiful summer's day like this,
I kind of want to put myself back 40 or 50 years.
It wouldn't just be like you've got now, a lot of wheat and arable.
There would be a pond, there would be some arable, there would be some pastureland,
there would be many more hedgerows, there would be smaller fields,
and there would just generally be more flowers.
I've arrived in Creaton, a small village in Northamptonshire.
According to a recent survey, the rate of loss of wildflower species
is higher in this county than any other in England.
It's a stark fact, but Creaton,
set in the heart of what William Blake called
"England's green and pleasant land"
is a typical example of what appears to be the perfect English village.
But for our wildflowers and pollinating insects,
it's now a fundamentally poorer place.
Hello, everybody!
'I've chosen this picturesque village to start my campaign
'and have arranged a meeting to talk to the residents
'about what they could do to bring back the flowers and pollinators
'to church yards, verges, and hopefully the village green.'
We're trying to get people to grow more wildflowers,
and also to perhaps think about allowing some of the common areas in the village
to go back to wildflowers a little bit.
We have this attitude that if something isn't mown, it's untidy, and it's not right.
But unfortunately, the insects are in a state of crisis,
and we have got to actually just... we've got to face that
and not keep thinking, "Ooh! It'll be tomorrow,"
cos it isn't tomorrow, it's now.
'Katie Masters, a young mother from the village,
'and the head of the Parish Council, Stan Perrins,
'took me off to explore potential wildflower sites.'
- That's the new part of the churchyard. - It's through there.
And then there's the old...
Well, it's a beautiful churchyard, isn't it?
It is, yes.
But the wildflowers in the churchyard have been mown to the edge of existence.
Potentially, it's a brilliant area where they could be encouraged.
There's lots of flowers here,
just waiting for the right opportunity to re-establish themselves.
There's speedwell here, ground ivy, wood avens,
field buttercup, meadow buttercup,
and that's woundwort, that one's called.
Oh, and you've got caper spurge, they're self sown. That's nice.
Well, I think this would be just fabulous.
Well, it's a win-win, isn't it?
Even the village green is not going to escape my beady eye.
Our national obsession with mowing does little to help wildlife
and it costs all our councils a fortune.
But just reducing the mowing allows plants like white clover to flower,
which is hugely beneficial to our bumblebees.
But if a corner of the green could be left to wildflowers and long grass,
it would have a much bigger impact.
Well, I think this would be perfect, cos then the kids have got their mown bit
for playing football and things.
Because it's in a public space,
you're going to need to be able to see something fairly quickly.
- Yes, yes... - So...
- Even if it's just a few bits and pieces... - Yes. Yes.
..as an act of good faith.
Now it's up to Katie, Stan and the rest of the Parish Council and the residents of Creaton
to really get behind my ideas and match words with some action.
So where shall we leave it? Can I hand the campaign on to you?
Will you talk to the Parish Council?
We'll... I'll talk about it in the Parish Council.
And can I come back in a little while, and just see how, how you're doing?
- That'll be fine. - Good!
And let's hope we'll have a flowery green by next year,
- or part of the green. - Yeah, part of the green.
And then next year, we can double it.
'It all seems so sunny,
'but I'm sensing that once words have to be turned into deeds,
'it might not be plain sailing.
'Perhaps I'm asking for too big a change to happen overnight,
'but at least I've got people thinking.'
Like many of our rural counties, there are good reasons why Northamptonshire
has changed over the last 70 years or so.
After the war, the government decided there was a real need
to modernise the nation's agriculture
as food shortages and rationing lingered.
We needed to grow more food.
Across the UK, around 300,000 unproductive farms were given government aid,
and an additional five-and-a-half million acres of land
was used to try and double food production.
So by the late '60s into the early '70s,
with mechanisation and the invention of chemical fertilisers and pesticides,
our countryside landscape was totally transformed.
The Farrington family have been farming in Northamptonshire since the early 1900s,
and have experienced the changes through the decades.
There's Daddy, girls, look at that!
He's got his cap on as well.
Duncan Farrington was born and brought up on Bottom Farm
and is the fourth generation of the family to run the business,
and manages the land in partnership with his father, Robert.
This is then my father, your...
Great-granddad.
There we are, pushing the hedges out.
But, of course, we went from lovely little fields to great big prairies.
Now this is where we're shoving a bar down in the ground, next to the tree roots,
and we're going to lift the bar out in a minute, you can see this,
and then you put some gelignite down and cover the hole up,
and stood back, and it used to blow the roots out.
- Boom! - Yes.
Arguably, the biggest change to our countryside was a nationwide government-funded scheme
to uproot hedges to create enormous fields which could accommodate vast machinery
suitable for large-scale food production.
Hundreds of thousands of miles of hedgerows vanished from our countryside,
and along with them went the rich variety of wildflowers and plants
that grew alongside the boundaries and borders of our fields.
But at Bottom Farm, Duncan and Robert have started a number of projects
to bring the wildlife back.
Where we've planted hedges...
Here, the majority of the hedges are quick thorn, which is this.
But then, in there also, you've got dog rose here,
blackberry bush further down there, hazel,
so the hedges that we've planted over the years.
So they've been your native, deciduous hedge species.
On our right is a field of rape seed,
so that's the crop we want to grow as farmers,
and we want to grow that to the best of our ability.
And looking across that, as a farmer, that's not bad, is it?
- It's nice and clean... - Yes, there's no weeds coming through, which makes a change!
Hopefully, we're going to get lots of rape seed from that, you know, and that's brilliant.
And then the six metres in-between here,
we've let that down to naturally regenerating grassland. It's a wildlife strip.
It's great that Duncan has put in these grassy margins,
but if he added wildflowers into the mix,
the wider variety of pollen and nectar could really help the insects that pollinate his crops.
I want to convince him and all our farmers and landowners across the nation to do this,
and it really could help both wildflower populations
and our pollinators at the same time.
But when it comes to growing wildflowers,
there's one ex-farmer who knows exactly how to do it.
25 years ago, in rural Dorset,
Pam Lewis and her late husband retired from farming and bought a smallholding
and turned cultivating wildflowers into an art form.
So this is the meadow?
- Yes, this is the newly-created meadow. - Right.
And in order to achieve this,
I was advised to scrape away the particularly fertile top soil,
which we did, about six to eight inches,
and sow into the quite hostile subsoil.
- And I was lucky to receive seed of local provenance. - Right.
So everything that you see came from local meadows.
But it's extraordinary how the dyer's greenweed has predominated.
- It's literally like a carpet, isn't it? - It's formed a matrix.
And the yellow rattle has actually seen off almost all of the grass,
and it still gives the opportunity for some of these lovely nectar plants,
such as betony and devil's-bit scabious and knapweed,
all of which are plants that you could grow in your garden,
including the dyer's greenweed,
so anyone with a small garden could produce a similar result in a small way.
You don't just have to have areas of meadow to have them in your garden.
No, you can do it in a very small patch and still attract pollinating insects,
which is what we all need to be doing, for sure.
As well as an incredible flair for creating meadows,
Pam has discovered how to get a much longer lasting display.
This is what I call a henge, because of its circular nature.
- This used to be a horse school. - Did it?
- And that's why it's... - In a circle, yes.
I just sowed this and then let it progress in its own way,
so it's a concentration of native plants, keeping my particular interest in knapweed.
So, I mean, there are some already going over
and there are some still to come, like this one here.
Yes, that's what I'm interested in, prolonging the season,
particularly using one plant.
By carefully selecting seed from the ones that flower early
and the ones that flower late,
the knapweeds in Pam's garden stay in flower for months, rather than just a few weeks.
Apart from the knapweeds, have you done that with other plants as well?
Yes, I've done it with devil's-bit scabious,
which I've rescued seed from our local cemetery,
from a very early flowering form.
And then, also introduced a later flowering one,
so I've got a difference of six weeks.
That's absolute genius,
because one of the criticisms that gardeners have of wildflower meadows
is that they see them as something that is very transient, that goes over so quickly,
but if you can scatter these wider season plants through,
then you're on to a winner, aren't you?
Absolutely. And they're all top-class nectar plants for our bees, butterflies,
the whole range of insects.
And you've got wild carrot in here too.
Yes, wild carrot is, I think, one of the most beautiful wildflowers in the world.
It doesn't attract bees and butterflies, but it is, as you can see, populated with soldier beetles.
It's absolutely crawling.
Yes, it's their top totty.
Beautiful.
Pam has shown me how it's possible to make both a very long flowering and beautiful space,
and at the same time, somewhere that's an incredible oasis for our native insects.
But places like this are few and far between,
and part of the problem for wildflowers is that we don't seem to care about them any more.
And because of that, it's now estimated
that one in every five of our wild plants is at high risk from extinction.
I think over the last sort of century really, but even over my lifetime,
we have got rather removed from our wildflowers and our natural environment.
My kids, for instance,
I'm not sure they would recognise that many plants.
I mean, they know garden plants better.
I think we are in danger of not valuing our wildflowers because we don't know them.
It can only be positive if we reconnect more with our wildflowers,
and if we do, we'll treasure them more.
It becomes a virtuous circle, because the wildflowers in this country
are the absolute foundation stone for just so much.
'Back in Creaton, I've encouraged young mum Katie
'to get a group together
'to explore a meadow at nearby Coton Manor Gardens.'
There are just so many things growing...
- It just looks so lovely. - It's interesting,
all the different levels, isn't it?
It's like a rainforest. At every level, you've got something else to look at.
I'm hoping that seeing this will encourage them to get going
and really turn words into deeds back in the village.
- Look at that mix of colours though. I mean... - It's beautiful, isn't it?
You know, you couldn't plan a garden to look as beautiful as that.
No.
Oh! All those little beetles in there.
Oh, look at that bee, with a stripy white bottom.
As soon as you get your eye in, you just see layer upon layer of bugs and beetles.
Now, what's that down there, on its own? Is that an orchid?
Lilacy. Can you see, up there?
Can you see the seed pods there? They dry,
and the seeds will go down, back into the ground here.
And it'll all start again.
This small group seem to be convinced,
but will that translate into action and more wildflowers across Creaton?
I really hope so.
'But it's not just about bringing colour to the countryside.
'Wildflowers do a whole lot more than that.
'Some recent research has directly linked the decline in bee and pollinator numbers
'to the loss of wildflower habitats.
'And scientists have discovered that our honey bees and pollinators
'need lots of different types of pollen and nectar to build their immune systems.'
Without this diversity of flower food,
bee colonies can become weak and have lower disease resistance.
Dr Simon Potts is a leading expert in this field of research.
Wildflowers in all their diversity
help support diverse bee communities.
In fact, there's more than 250 species of bee in the UK.
- Are there, really? - And different bees do different pollinating jobs,
- so we need them all. - Yeah.
You can't just rely on one or two species.
But for them to be good and healthy, they need really diverse wildflowers,
because the flowers provide different sorts of food and nutrients for them.
So I suppose you could think about us,
if we just ate the same ready meal night after night after night,
that would really be incredibly unhealthy,
because we'd miss lots of vitamins and minerals and micro nutrients.
The same for bees, they need a variety.
As amazing as this science is, it really is just complete commonsense.
If we take away their five a day, they're going to become malnourished and ill, just like us,
and find it harder to survive.
So if we have these diverse flowers,
we can provide food for a diverse set of bees,
these bees then go on to do the work to make sure many of our crops are pollinated,
and it means that us as a consumer, we have a great variety of food sources.
So you've got almost the whole chain.
And the foundation for our varied and healthy diet is here,
in a wide selection of wild plants.
Absolutely.
Back in Creaton, in Northamptonshire, it's judgement day for my campaign.
Postcards of the village from the early 1900s
clearly suggest a place
less obsessed with mowing and more in touch with its wild plants.
But will the Parish Council want to re-embrace their wild side?
We'll begin with the biodiversity programme.
We had Sarah Raven talking to a group of about a dozen or so of us
about what we could do by way of a community
in order to try and increase biodiversity in the village,
more wildflowers and the various insects, etc that they would attract into the village.
To do our bit for the environment, basically.
Because I've lived here all my life,
a vast amount of my childhood
was spent on that green with horses and sheep and cows
and hay making, and all those things,
so to me, I would dearly love a section of it to go back long, if that would be possible.
How do people feel about that?
Katie's passion for the campaign is obvious,
but the rest of the Parish Council seem less enthused.
But after further discussion, one of the councillors has a suggestion.
2010 is the UN International Year Of Biodiversity.
With this in mind, I would like to suggest that the Parish Council
co-ordinate the creation of a Creaton Village biodiversity group.
The idea of forming a group is a start,
but I'm worried that it could give the Parish Council the opportunity to deflect a decision.
I fear it could be a while before there's any real action.
But whilst Creaton debate my proposal,
I'm off to find out more information about one of our favourite pollinators
that will hopefully help me convince others to join my campaign.
Dr Nikki Gammans is working with farmers all across Kent
to encourage them to sow areas of land with clover and wildflower habitat.
The aim of the project is to make an extensive network of nectar for endangered bumblebees.
This new habitat will then help them spread out into the county and multiply their numbers.
Oh, I think I might have caught a rare one here.
Yes, that's the brown bandied carder bee. That one.
Bombus humilis, and it's actually quite a rare bee here in the UK.
It's one of our endangered bees.
So as you go about catching, you're looking out for the rare ones,
and how many of them are actually either extinct or nearly extinct?
Of our 25 species, two have actually gone extinct over the last six years,
seven of them are endangered, they're rare and threatened,
and that's largely due to the loss of habitat for them.
Tell me a little bit about this particular site
and why it's so important to the bumblebees.
Well, this has been worked here for the last ten years
to create the ideal bumblebee habitat,
so lots of red clover, lots of bird's foot trefoil,
lots of vetch and vetchlings as well.
That's why it's so important that I work with farmers and other landowners over this area
so the bees can nest there, and hopefully, they will just continue to disperse out.
So that's why farmers are so important in this system,
to create habitat for these bees so that we can help their numbers
and of course help their pollination of their crops as well.
- The landowners help the bee and the bee helps the landowner. - Exactly!
- It's a mutualism, they both help each other. - Brilliant.
It was really great spending that time with Nikki,
because it just made me realise that
in the garden here, I'd be lost without the bumblebee,
and a tomato is a really, really good example of that.
The good old bumblebee comes in and it knocks the flower,
cos it's quite a chunky insect.
And that is absolutely crucial to the release of the pollen.
And so then, the fertilisation and so fruit formation of that flower.
And as you can see from this truss, you know, that flower is out now,
but the others have already been fertilised and pollinated by the bee.
Can you imagine if I had to come in here and do the role of the bee?
So each flower on each truss opened
of all my tomato plants, I'd have to pollinate them myself.
I mean, it literally would be a full-time job,
and so without that kind of slightly bumbly, clumsy, sweet insect,
I'm not going to get nearly such a good crop of tomatoes.
'It's estimated that 84% of the crops we grow in Europe
'depend directly on insect pollinators, especially bees,
'and without this service, our food chain could collapse.'
But it's not just farmers and the villagers of Creaton,
every single one of us can do our bit to help the bees and butterflies
and grow more wildflowers.
I'm exploring a local meadow to collect a small amount of seed to establish back at home,
and expert seed collector Sue Everett can show me how.
There's a lot less colour
than there was a month ago in this particular meadow.
But that's because we are here to collect seeds, isn't it?
Absolutely, and the window for seed harvesting is usually the first two weeks in July,
at least in southern England, when a good proportion of the meadow wildflowers are in seed.
Will you explain to me the sort of dos and don'ts of seed collection?
Well, if you're collecting seed for your own garden,
you're not going to collect very much,
and you're not going to do any harm to either the site they're on
or the species by collecting a little bit.
- It's a bit like collecting blackberries in the wild. - Yeah.
First of all, you need to make sure that you're picking seed that's ripe,
and also, you need something to put the seed in.
So you need to put the seed in a paper bag.
I've just made one out of a bit of newspaper here.
- So not plastic. - Not plastic.
You look for the plants you want to collect.
This is rough hawkbit,
it's already produced its clock, and you just pull it off with your hands.
That couldn't be easier, could it?
- There's the seeds at the end of the parachute. - Beautiful.
Just stick them in your paper bag.
We find some oxeye daisy.
There we are. That's it. yep.
There's a little bit of seed on there, as you can see.
Just push it with your finger.
- That's really ready for collecting. - Yeah.
'If you are going to collect wildflower seed,
'remember to gain the permission of the land owner,
'and also a small amount of seed will go a very long way,
'so don't collect too much.'
And this is yellow rattle, isn't it?
That's yellow rattle, also known as hay rattle.
Now, that looks to me as if that's pretty ripe.
Yeah, that's very ripe.
That's a very interesting plant because it's a parasite on grass.
One of the biggest enemies of wildflower meadows is too much grass,
so when we create wildflower meadows, we always put yellow rattle in the seed mix.
But remember, this is the key point, it takes two years.
Your wildflowers and the grasses you sow
will be literally the size of a 5p piece
this time of year, which is July.
- Because they're perennials. - Because they're perennials.
They concentrate on putting their roots in the ground first.
They don't concentrate their energy on above-ground foliage,
and it won't be until next summer, that's the second summer,
that you will see the wildflowers.
'What Sue has really shown me is that growing wildflowers on a small scale
'is in fact quite easy and cost effective.
'But there are still some farmers who need to be convinced
'that on a bigger scale, it's still really worth their while
'and is financially viable.'
At my suggestion, our Northamptonshire farmer, Duncan Farrington,
is visiting a research project that hopes to prove
that there are more benefits to growing wildflowers
than he might first have imagined.
So here we get to the end of a trial of wheat then, Dave,
so what have we got here then?
Here, we've actually got our experimental field margin,
- it's quite interesting from a farm point of view. - Yeah.
We're looking to develop something that's more of a long-term perennial based margin,
as opposed to some of the annual mixes that are already in existence.
The idea with these perennial margins is that they flower year on year.
It's the first year it's been in,
so you've got a lot of these annual species coming through,
things like your annual cornflower here,
actually giving us this lovely blue margin at the moment.
We also have a total of 22 flowering species in here,
around half of which are actually perennials.
We're hoping here that what we'll see over time as the project progresses,
that we'll actually get a slight change in the sward.
You might see fewer of these annuals, for example, things like cornflower,
but we'll see a more perennial sward developing.
- So it should actually be there for much longer. - How long is much longer?
Well, we certainly hope that in the course of the project, four or five years,
it would last at least that, and hopefully, quite a while beyond that,
because once we've got the perennial plants there and established,
they should of course stay there.
Yes.
The 22 species of wildflowers chosen for the mix
were not only picked for their benefits to our insect pollinators,
there's even more good news for Duncan.
We're not just hoping to encourage things like your pollinators and your farmland birds,
we're also looking to get a pest control element from these margins.
We're looking for them to have a function on the farm as well.
This sounds good to me, this sounds like integrated farming in its essence.
It certainly is, yes.
Things we call the pest natural enemies that we're trying to really encourage in here
by providing a food source, shelter for those pest natural enemies as well,
so that when you actually get pests in the crop, you've got those natural enemies here
to move into your crop and give you some pest control.
Insect traps have been set up within the crop and the wildflower boundary
to discover how effective these new margins are
at attracting predators that then feed on crop pests.
One of the main sort of drives of this project is to actually show
that while yes, you can put these things in for their pure conservation value,
we actually want a margin that's going to deliver an economic benefit to the grower as well,
that's actually going to provide positive pest management
and actually save the farmer money by doing so.
I think that's the future of farming, isn't it?
I think so, yes. In fact, part of the project is to look at a cost benefit analysis,
so you can actually say, you pop this margin in, this is the money you might save.
And it's helping the wildlife at the same time.
It does that as well, yes. It's very much a multi-functional field margin.
This project may only be in its early stages,
but Duncan is sold on the many benefits that this new type of flower strip can offer
to both pollinators and the crops on his farm.
Back home in my garden, it's time to start cleaning
the native wildflower seed I've been collecting over the summer.
With the tips from Sue up my sleeve,
I've been back to the wildflower meadow a few times,
because each time I go, it seems that there are two or three things
that are absolutely perfect for harvesting.
And, erm...
Last time I went, I found that lesser knapweed and yellow rattle were just perfect.
And that's what I'm going to clean now.
Just sprinkle it like this onto a big sheet of white paper,
and can you see the seeds are sort of pinging out as I do so?
See, there, that's no good, cos that's all petal,
and you don't want those,
whereas these chunkier, paler things are the seeds,
and that's what we want.
My father was a passionate botanist and artist,
and spent a lot of time illustrating wildflowers.
He really taught me about the whole of the natural world,
and how wonderful it is to know wildflowers
and to make them part of your everyday life.
I think gardeners, on the whole,
tend to think of wildflowers as very ethereal,
not showy, and actually, not true.
There are some that are real showstoppers.
And the other thing is that we tend to think that they're very transient,
they're over in two or three weeks, and they don't give you longevity of flower.
Not true. You know, I can immediately think of knapweed, for instance,
the lesser and even more the greater - showy, long flowering, non-invasive,
nice foliage, healthy, easy to grow.
Brilliant garden plant, as well as a wildflower.
And of course, all the centaureas, really, are fantastic for insects.
They just, they have it. They're the really sexy plant if you're an insect.
As well as the knapweeds, other brilliant wildflowers to try
include scabious or pincushion flowers,
and all of their close botanical relatives in the teasel family.
Wild plants in the borage family, such as echiums,
are completely adored by butterflies and bumblebees
and make incredible garden plants.
Native members of the pea or legume family are also hugely favoured by pollinators,
and there are lots of them, like red and white clovers,
vetches and vetchlings, bird's foot trefoil, and sainfoin.
And finally, if soldier beetles, ladybirds and hoverflies are missing from your garden,
plant clouds of flat-headed umbelliferae, like beautiful wild carrot,
bishop's weed, and bright yellow daisies like corn marigolds.
It's September and I'm back in Creaton to catch up with Katie
and find out what's been happening on the wildflower front.
So tell me, how has it been going?
Has it kind of been cruising along brilliantly with the wildflower project,
or is it slightly sinking into the sand?
Well, I thought that meeting on the green was really positive.
And I didn't really hear any negative comments from anybody.
After that, we had a Parish Council meeting, erm...
which started off quite positively,
but nothing's really happened, which is quite, I find quite frustrating,
cos of my personality. I'm more of a sort of,
"Well, just go with it, just do it."
'Reading between the lines, it's clear that there's some resistance
'to my campaign in the village,
'but it feels like no-one wants to air their concerns when I visit.'
I think what we should do today is really try and get some names,
because that's a really, really strong starting point.
We can then go to the Parish Council and just say, "Look, these people are keen."
And then, they'll feel empowered to, you know, bring along the people who are more negative.
- So, are you ready? - Ready!
I just wondered if I could talk to you, just for a minute?
You know the wildflower area
that we are proposing to have at the bottom of the green down there?
- Will you sign our petition? - Yes, certainly.
Because we are going to then take this to the Parish Council to...
To show that there are people in support of it and try and move it along a bit further.
Would you be prepared to sign?
Would you be happy to sign?
- Yes! - Would that be OK?
Thank you.
- Am I first on the list? - You're my first one, yeah.
I assure you, it'll only be that bottom area.
That's all you're signing away of the green, OK?
'With a little bit of extra explanation about what we're aiming to achieve,
'everyone seems to be remarkably keen.'
- Yes, OK. - Oh, that's lovely. Thank you so much.
Lovely. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much!
- It's a great idea. - Lovely.
Other villages too, in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire?
I think this is... We're the pilot.
If you can crack Creaton, you can crack anywhere!
'Time to re-group and see how the campaign is going.'
I mean, some people have got real concerns,
and I totally understand that.
And I think a lot of it was almost as if they kind of got the wrong end of the stick,
and they were thinking that we were doing something quite terrible
and that the whole green is going to be involved,
and that we're going to have to stop having functions and barbecues on the green.
So I think once people understood where we're coming from,
it was good and it was positive. Yeah.
I got a few names and I've left a form.
- I got more than you! - Yeah, you did!
I left a form in the shop.
And hopefully, we'll get more from there,
and then if you could possibly take them to Stan, to the head of the Parish Council.
And then he, I hope, can give the go-ahead.
All right, thank you, Sarah. That's great.
I'm confident that Katie can get even more people in the village to sign the list,
and persuade Stan and the Parish Council to give wildflowers a chance in Creaton.
But just a few miles away, in his Northamptonshire farm,
Duncan Farrington needs no persuasion to start sowing his new flowery margins.
A while ago, we came and saw this when the crop was still here.
We're now in autumn, the ground conditions are right,
and I've got a specialist mix of wildflower seed that we're going to plant.
So 90% is grass seed, but then when I'm looking at it,
these little tiny seeds.
We've got 20 different wildflower seeds in here.
If you just made a mix up with one species, it'd be a very short flowering period.
And it smells nice as well, it smells, erm...smells fresh.
So hopefully, it's going to grow.
Once we've got it established, which takes a year to 18 months,
it should last ten to 15 years.
It's going be great for wildlife,
it's going to be great for agriculture,
and it'll look pretty as well, hopefully.
I'm hopeful that this is just the first of many new flowery strips that Duncan will sow.
Along with all the new hedges and trees that Duncan and his father have planted,
these areas will provide incredibly useful habitat for both pollinating insects
and all sorts of other farm wildlife.
And I'm looking forward to seeing it in the spring.
But back at home, it's also time for me to sow my wildflower seed.
The autumn's a really good time to sow wildflower seed,
because then you cover all bases,
because hardy annuals will germinate quite quickly,
and some of the perennials,
but there are some of the perennials that need a proper cold season
to get them to germinate.
So the first seed that I'm going to sow is lesser knapweed,
which I collected in the meadow.
And you want to sow as widely spaced as you possibly can,
so you don't get too much overcrowding.
In some ways, that's an advantage of direct sowing,
is that you can just scatter the seeds far and wide,
but the problem with that is that you do get real problems
with competition from weeds and grasses.
So I tend to think you're kind of belt and braces
if you sow it into a seed tray.
And then, what I'm going to do is cover this with grit.
With wildflower seed, it really is as simple as that.
They don't need mollycoddling. In fact, they shouldn't be mollycoddled.
So just somewhere cold, but out of the rain, so the seeds don't get washed out.
In the spring, out they go, as little seedlings, straight into the garden,
and then that is the beginning of your wildflower meadow.
There's been fantastic news from Creaton.
Our petition paid off and Katie has even got Stan,
the head of the Parish Council,
to help her plant a small area of wildflowers on the green.
The plan is to mark out and plant up an area this autumn
to give instant impact next summer
and help win over more of the village.
- That's it. - That looks superb!
Right. Everyone can see what we're using?
Right. That's it.
Adam, you can move now. We've got our mark...
That's it.
So plant everything in there. We've got some natural bare spots anyway, so...
And we're going to rough the grass up a bit. OK?
And we can plant them in there.
Do you think that's a good idea?
Good boy! Well done!
Oh, look at that!
I think the posh name for that is scarified.
So that's been really scarified there, hasn't it?
Come on!
And then we are going to spread the yellow rattle,
and the yellow rattle attacks the roots of the grass.
So it makes the grass weak.
Say, "Grow, little seeds."
It's great to see this level of enthusiasm!
Fantastic!
I wish I could have contained it slightly better!
Stan, if they survive this, these plants will survive anything!
And I think we'll probably have to order a few more plants
and perhaps come out under cover of darkness
- and plant them all over again! - I heard that!
I'm hopeful that the plug plants will give this area
some instant impact next spring,
and hopefully be the start of Creaton
welcoming wildflowers back into the village.
It's May, and year two of my campaign,
and at home at Perch Hill, it's time to complete my mini wildflower meadow.
Last autumn, I collected quite a lot of seed
from meadows close by to Perch Hill
and I sowed them into seed trays, and I pricked them out,
and most of them have done really well, actually.
And I have bought in a few plug plants,
just to give me instant impact this year.
I found a little area, just to the left of the cutting garden,
which was quite a rough place,
and I've decided that's going to be a wildflower meadow.
And last autumn, I sprayed it off to kill the grasses,
and lots and lots of nettles, docks and thistles.
And then, in October, I direct sowed a wildflower mix,
with some grasses in it.
The finer-leaf varieties of grasses.
And some yellow rattle.
And it's germinated well, actually, through the winter.
So where there are sort of patches which haven't germinated so well,
that's perfect, cos there won't be competition.
What's exciting about it is because they're perennial,
it should just get better and better and better.
So last autumn, to begin the meadow,
I sowed my seed mix directly on the ground,
and now I'm filling the gaps with the extras I've grown and potted on.
But in Northamptonshire, Duncan is using a very different technique
to get his wildflower borders established,
and I'm going to catch up with him to see how these new margins are establishing.
So when did you sow this seed mix?
I planted this in the end of September last year.
So we are now eight or nine months later on.
It's come through the winter. It didn't do much in the winter.
But then in the spring, as things started warming up a little,
things started growing, mostly weeds, that I would recognise as weeds.
Like, er... what I've just seen, some brome here.
So what we've actually done is, as these things start to come in,
we started from the beginning of March mowing it.
So you may think, "Oh, that's going to destroy what we are trying to grow."
But I've mowed it a couple of times. And I think we need to do it again now
to discourage these invasive weeds, arable weeds, that are very competitive.
So, basically, the theory, agriculturally,
is that you want to cut through your first year.
To really try and deplete the seed bank of the more invasive things,
to then give your slower-growing perennial wildflowers
- a chance to really get going. - Yes.
And I can immediately see really quite a lot of things that will come next...
- It'll be more showy next year. - Yes.
They are here already, but they won't flower much till next year.
I mean, there's selfheal there, there's wild carrots and there's an oxy daisy there.
Yes. Yeah.
And, you know, so there's definitely stuff in here,
and you're right, it's been slightly chocked by the annuals, isn't it?
And this is a very nice grass too, which I'm pretty sure would have been in your seed mix.
And you can always tell this, I find this really easy to identify,
cos it only has the flower spike on one side of the stem.
So it's completely flat on one side, as if it's been sort of shoved against a wall or something.
And that's a really good grass, the crested dog's tail,
because it can cohabit with wildflowers and won't outcompete them.
From my point of view, as a sustainable farmer,
it has to pay, at the end of the day.
So I've got my crop of wheat here. That's our day job.
But those pollinating insects, while they aren't going to pollinate wheat,
next year, this could be beans or rapeseed, which they will pollinate.
But also, the insects here, it could be predators.
So we could have hover fly, or ladybirds, or beetles that may...
the hover fly might have nectar off the cow parsley for breakfast.
It may then fly out into the wheat and eat aphids for lunch.
Excellent. And so, it makes real financial sense as well.
I hope so, long term.
I think it's brilliant that Duncan is bringing these new wildflower areas to his farm.
They are so important as wildlife corridors,
helping our bees, butterflies and all sorts of wildlife
to travel across intensively farmed areas.
But it's time to return to the village of Creaton,
where just a year ago, I started my campaign on the village green.
- So this is the bit here? - Yes, yes!
It's fab, isn't it?
The seed heads are what get you first.
I know it's for the wildflowers.
But also, everyone has been saying how pretty the grass looks,
allowing the grass to grow long as well.
Well, it just has so much more movement, doesn't it?
It reminds me of when I was a child.
This is how the green used to be.
So it's great. It's fantastic.
So tell me how it's gone down.
I haven't had any actual negative comments about it at all.
- Brilliant! No-one's said it's messy, or...? - No, no. Not yet.
Now it's actually up, and it's fed so well in the dry weather,
it looks a lot better than the sort of patched turf over there.
They have actually changed the mowing regime of the green.
So instead of it being mowed every two weeks, it's now gone to three weeks.
So, last time, you said, we have daisies on the rest of the green.
So that is a minor triumph.
Well, that saves money and it's good for the pollinators.
Absolutely. But we never used to see any daisies,
cos the heads were cut off before they were even...
So that is one thing that is now set in stone.
The reduction in mowing across the majority of the green
is an incredible step forward,
but I'm keen to know if the village now see the benefit of wildflowers
and the effect it could have for pollinators.
Do you think people associate, you know, the increase of wildflowers,
do you think they realise that that means an increase in insects?
I think they do. I think, cos you can't miss it.
Because actually, as you come across the green, there are...
you know, the bees, and the wasps and the things.
Just, actually, as we walk now, they are just taking...
taking off as we walk through them.
So, I just don't think you can miss it.
And so, where do you feel it goes from this little patch?
Do you feel Creaton is going to grab the sort of wildflower thing, or not?
I hope so! I hope so.
Because I think this is a fantastic area to show people.
It's not frightening, it's not bramble and rubbish.
And there's no sort of cigarette packets.
Next year, it will look even better.
As everything comes up, we've got a reasonable show now,
and I just think it'll only get better.
I'm really encouraged by how positive Katie is,
but I know how difficult even small changes can be for any community.
So we're calling on Stan, head of the Parish Council.
How do you feel that the village green project is going? The triangle.
Er... A lot of people quite like it.
There are some, as you would expect, who aren't quite so...
so favourable towards it.
But generally speaking, nobody has actually
- gone out there and trashed it, have they? - No.
And the children, it's just been a huge success with the children.
Yes. Yeah.
It just adds an extra element to the green.
The tactileness of it, the fact they can run through it,
pick the flowers, do as they like.
And it's only a smallish area of the green, anyway.
- So they can still... - Do you think we can get it bigger?
I think it will take time, but I don't see why not.
I think, certainly, we'll hold what we've got.
We will hold that ground. We're going to hold that ground.
But Stan has even more good news,
as the debate fired by my campaign has lead to a new group being forged,
known as Natural Creaton.
The emphasis mainly is to encourage people
- to do things in their own gardens. - Yeah.
Yes, the public spaces as well will be included in it,
but there are various things they can do in their garden
to encourage wildlife, bees, and flowers, etc, etc.
And then we want, you know, Creaton can be the start,
and then we want every village to do it throughout the country,
- and then we really will get a big effect. - Yes. Yeah.
The future of wildflowers on the green is still a little uncertain.
However, the Parish Council have decided
that they can be encouraged back in part of the churchyard.
So for a final dose of inspiration,
I'm taking Katie on a short trip to the next village.
I just thought it'd be really good to come and have a look at this place,
because the surprising thing is it's within a mile or two of Creaton.
And I just heard that they were doing exactly what we were talking about in the churchyard.
You know, you can't put your foot down on the ground there...
No, exactly.
- without treading on something... - Yeah.
There's St John's wort there. There's hogweed here.
Tons and tons. And look...
- That's beautiful. - Lovely...
And look at all the bees and the pollinators as we are walking through.
Well, that, I think that's the thing,
as well as it looking wonderful, I think,
it's just such an important nectar resource for all the insects in this whole area.
And if we can get Creaton doing it, and then other people doing it,
- it's just the most wonderful optimistic thing. - Absolutely. Absolutely.
I just, I can't see how anyone could object to this.
If you still have any doubters, you know, bring them here at this time of the year.
- Yeah. It's inspirational. - And you can't really go wrong, can you?
Back at Perch Hill, my meadow project is showing great promise for the future.
My wildflower meadow is looking much like I expected in its first season.
There isn't a huge amount of colour in here, but there are lots of lovely grasses,
like crested dog's tail, and I can see already, within the grasses,
there's lots of lovely wildflower potential.
But that is what Sue explained, with perennials, you can't expect that in the first year.
The key thing is I've got to decrease the fertility on my heavy clay soil.
So, I'm going to strim it off in a few weeks at the beginning of August
and rake it, take it away.
I mustn't leave it to mulch down and enrich the soil any more.
But wherever I walk in here, there's loads and loads of insect life.
And so, they're already definitely enjoying it.
But next year, there will be tones and tones of nectar for them.
And so I feel very excited and pleased with what I think of
as my kind of little mini potential nature reserve.
The thing that I've really noticed
travelling around the British Isles over the last 18 months
is how much it's changed since I was a child.
And there is no doubt that there are fewer flowers,
both in our lane sides and in our fields,
than there were when I was pottering around botanising with my dad.
The whole place has a different feel, a different colour, and a different atmosphere.
Now, there's no point us imagining that we can turn the clocks back to 40 years ago.
It's just not going to happen.
But there are more modern alternatives of helping out our insect populations.
And you've seen that with Katie in Creaton
and with Duncan on his farm.
Both two fantastically exciting projects,
which are really optimistic and will make a big difference.
But it's not just about the countryside,
our cities and our sprawling urban landscapes need to play their part too,
as do our many towns, gardens and flower displays.
So next week, in the second programme of this series,
I'll be challenging the Britain In Bloom competition,
the UK garden industry and the Royal Horticultural Society
to play a major part and really help our pollinating insects.
By increasing habitats that are friendly for them and increasing their food supply,
which we can all easily do in our gardens,
we can really make a genuine difference
and start to reverse the declines.