FLOWERY VERGES
I received an interesting email from one of my local town councillors, Amanda Wheeler, about the maintenance of grass verges around Stamford. Amanda had put forward a proposal to cut the verges and remove the cuttings just a couple of times a year as opposed to frequently cutting the grass with a mulching mower and leaving the cuttings in place.
Her main reasons for proposing cut and collect are environmental, with aesthetics and economics being secondary benefits. Local paper the Rutland & Stamford Mercury is covering the debate and encouraging residents to engage.
Phil Sterling from Butterfly Conservation, aka “Verge Man”, has done trials on wild flower verges for Dorset Council which involved reducing the cuts to two times or three times a year using a machine that is capable of cutting and collecting long grass, the Grillo FD2200.
Less frequent mowing is far better for wild flowers and insects and is becoming more appreciated by the public. Dorset Council, having adopted this regime, now reckons it has halved the time staff spend cutting verges in summer, from five or six times a year (sometimes seven) before 2014 to two or sometimes three times a year now.
That is a huge saving in staff time and fuel, and the verges look neat and tidy (once mown) and wild flowers can bloom between the much less-frequent mowing rounds.
The mowings are secreted away in small piles in hedgerow bottoms, the litter having been removed. There are 50,000 hectares of verges in the UK, so Phil’s study could make a massive environmental change for the better.