Wildflower meadow project
If you walk onto the Heath over the Savernake Road bridge, you may have noticed some transformations around our volunteer and community hub, the Hive.
These are part of our programme of works to make improvements to this gateway to the Heath for biodiversity and visual appeal, making it a more inviting place for people and wildlife alike. Read on to find out what we’re up to and how you can support our project to create two new wildflower meadows.
Wild flowers on Parliament Hill Fields
Wildflower meadows
After a meeting with Butterfly Conservation’s Big City Butterflies project and Hampstead Heath’s Ecologist, we have identified two areas on Hampstead Heath to turn into new mini meadows and we need your help!
Replacing this area of grass with wildflowers will take more than just a ‘no mow’ approach. The fertile topsoil has to be dug out to expose less fertile subsoil where wildflowers are more likely to thrive with less competition from the current coarse grasses and other more dominant plants. Importantly, we also need to select wildflower seed mixes that are native to the area and suit the soil.
We will also be getting green-fingered with our volunteers to ‘grow on’ some wild flowers in pots to plant up in the shadier areas under trees where we can’t dig and seedlings might struggle. This will improve the wildflowers’ chances of survival.
It’s a lot of work, but the benefits will be huge and we should see an increase in insects of all kinds in the area, as well as creating a colourful summer display. We will also leave patches of nettles and other caterpillar food plants in situ to create a space where butterflies can breed as well as feed.
We will of course be working alongside the City of London Corporation to ensure an appropriate management plan for the meadows into the future.
Do you want to see this transformation take shape? Help by donating to our wildflower meadow appeal.
Help us turn this
Into something like this!
Savernake Road Bridge
Our wildflower meadow project builds on our work on the Savernake Road entrance to the Heath. Over the past year, we have planted up the neglected garden spaces, creating a pollinator-friendly perennial border, a shaded flower bed, wildflower areas and a hedgerow. You can read more about our Savernake Greening Project here.
Having a mixture of perennials, wildflowers and flowering trees provides varied forage for pollinators throughout the year. We are also labelling the plants to provide inspiration and ideas for passing people to plant up their own wildlife-friendly gardens.
In addition, planting up the borders along the pathways creates a better ‘wildlife corridor’ for pollinators, birds, bats and other species between the Heath and residential gardens.
Savernake Road before
Planting up at Savernake
Identifying wild flowers
If you’re interested in identifying some of the wildflowers you can find on Hampstead Heath, and some that will appear in our new meadows, you can buy a foldout ID guide to the Parliament Hill Sparrow Site wildflower meadow from our shop. All sales will help support our new wildflower meadow project.
