An island of wilderness... managed in the right way
SOMETIMES all is not what it seems. Where some see neglect others celebrate an opportunity to improve biodiversity.
So when you see an unmown roundabout this is not necessarily an example of a site being left unmanaged, sometimes it is quite the opposite.
One of my favourite illustrations of this is a roundabout on Southport seafront, where with the co-operation of Sefton’s highways department, mowing has been halted during the summer months (May to September) to allow a community of wild orchids to flourish.
To all intents and purposes it appears that the roundabout is untended, when in fact the kneedeep grasses hide a vibrant community of wild flowers.
This year was no exception although the cold nights of April and May seem to have knocked back our flora’s progress in 2021.
I confess I was a bit nervous earlier on when there was no sign of the basal rosettes that often betray the presence of orchids forming in the cold winter months, but fast forward into the start of June and ...bingo! Bee Orchid after Bee Orchid was flowering away.
I counted a total of 201 of these spectacular plants on the site and last week I discovered an additional two Pyramidal Orchids there too! The plants have gone over now (there’s nothing quite as melancholy as a survey site gone to seed – it speaks of fading summer and an approaching autumn).
But tell me that’s not better than a roundabout mown to within an inch of its life and scorched bare by summer sun.
It is not a question of never mowing, rather the crucial thing is to mow at the right time – so as long as this particular site is spared the blade from May to September it can be cut through autumn into early spring and the orchids should continue to thrive here.
I won’t publicise the location as obviously clambering onto a roundabout on a busy road is not to be encouraged, but I must extend my thanks to Sefton’s highways team for their enlightened approach in relation to this particular site.
It would be marvellous to work towards mowing other areas in a more sympathetic way – the days when cropped grass was seen as the tidiest and best alternative are gone... just look at the explosion in popularity of “wild flower meadows”.
While these artificially created habitats can involve a large amount of work to create and manage they are a haven for pollinators and the disappearing wild flowers of the UK.
We are fortunate in Sefton to have over 20 miles of coastline bursting with wild flowers, many of them very rare, but this doesn’t mean we can’t improve our verges and urban areas for nature too.
Wildlife and wild flowers don’t make a distinction between areas based on the protections afforded them and I’m not sure we should either.
Nature, after all, is rarely tidy, but none the worse for that.