News

Residents of Pease Pottage get lost in nature as they enjoy their very own wildflower meadow maze.

The Woodgate community in West Sussex has recently welcomed the addition of a stunning wildflower meadow maze on their doorstep.

In Pease Pottage, the new residential development of Woodgate is only 30 minutes from Brighton. The innovative maze forms a focal point for those at Pease Pottage, with the new wildflower landscape situated in the central village green.

Unveiled in May, residents and the wider Pease Pottage community, including teachers and pupils of Woodgate Primary School, were invited to the Woodgate development to witness a ribbon cutting ceremony.

With a core emphasis on the importance of nature, the official opening of the wildflower maze also allowed those in attendance to take part in a seed ball making activity run by Buglife, receive planting advice from Hillier Garden Centre and talk to Thakeham staff about how they could create space for nature in their own gardens, with Thakeham giving out copies of their Gardening for Wildlife Guide produced with support from Surrey Wildlife Trust.

The maze itself features at least 50 different varieties of wildflower to attract pollinators. Planted out in the shape of the Thakeham fingerprint…

Our creators, the Hewetson-Browns, have been farming in Hampshire for two generations, bringing valuable knowledge to the development of our biodiverse rich range of seeds, soil and wildflower turf.

20 years on from being the original innovators of Wildflower Turf, we are proud to now operate three sites, adding Shropshire and Yorkshire to our Ashe Warren Farm headquarters and research laboratory.

As the leading experts in Wildflower spaces, our passion to educate and inspire sustainable action and biodiversity gain through innovation is as strong as ever.

Here are some key milestones from our 20 year journey…

The journey could have been very different when after much hard work and development, the first square metre of wildflower turf (created by hand) was discarded! One month later, when it flowered, James realised there was an opportunity to create wildflower turf that would flourish and so the development continued!

2004 was our first RHS Chelsea Flower Show appearance, featuring in this delightful display. Fast forward to 2023 and wildflower spaces are proudly a regular feature in many designs, as awareness and understanding of biodiversity and the importance of wildflower…

As we arrive at the mid point of August, we have another guest blog from Amanda Winstead.  Amanda is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Online platforms have revolutionised the way organisations and individuals can advocate and raise awareness for a cause. For promoting sustainability and biodiversity in particular, educators can inform the public about how wildflowers play a crucial role in providing habitats and allowing the ecosystem to thrive. By harnessing the potential of crowdfunding, social media, blogs, and websites, individuals and organisations can act as “digital pollinators,” spreading the message of the importance of wildflower gardens and inspiring more people to take action and work towards environmental conservation.

Reaching a Wider Audience Online

Advocates of wildflower-supported biodiversity and sustainability aim to reach others and educate and inspire them to act. For example, you may understand the importance of planting native vs. non-native wildflowers, but others in your community may not. Luckily, online platforms have opened up the possibility to extend this information to larger audiences, allowing you to…

Welcome to the second instalment of our two-part blog focusing on our wildflower consultancy services, where we chat to Peter King, Associate Director of Facilities (CBRE) at Milton Park.

A recent wildflower consultancy project for us, Milton Park is a 250-acre science, business and technology park in Oxfordshire.

Our consultancy team recently conducted a site visit to assess and evaluate the Park’s wildflower areas. We provided a number of recommendations to improve the Park’s wildflower management strategy to ensure long-term success.

Following our consultation, we sat down with Peter King, Associate Director of Facilities (CBRE) at Milton Park. Peter has done a lot of work to develop the biodiversity at Milton Park and has had some fantastic results. Our visit aimed to gain further insight into how our input has helped to transform the way Milton Park’s wildflower spaces are managed.

“Peter, did you find the consultancy useful?”

“The Wildflower Turf consultancy visits have been invaluable and allowed us to discuss, on site, the specific issues and challenges we had. Using James’s in-depth knowledge in conjunction with our landscape maintenance provider (Nurture Landscapes) provided a detailed and pragmatic approach to the…

Last week our head of Research & Development; Helen Simmen, was lucky enough to attend a reception evening for the Save Our Wild Isles campaign, organised about by the charities WWF, RSPB and The National Trust.

Held in The College Garden in the middle of Westminster, the event aimed to bring together business leaders, members of Parliament and nature advocates to highlight the importance of taking immediate action to protect and restore nature in the UK. Centred around the David Attenborough BBC TV series Wild Isles, which aired earlier this year, the campaign has been put together by the three charities to inspire people to value UK nature and take action to protect it through a sense of collective agency. A major part of this has been the People’s Assembly for Nature and the People’s Plan for Nature which came about as a result.

At the reception were representatives of the three charities who presented information on the People’s Plan for Nature, including their hopes and ambitions for political, business and community driven action that will come about as a result. Helen spoke to a representative from WWF who explained how the project has been…

Milton Park benefits from our wildflower consultancy service

We pride ourselves on being the UK’s leading wildflower specialists. As a solutions-led business, our experienced consultancy team is well-versed in providing assistance to a wide variety of professionals, organisations and councils within the landscaping and built environment sector.

A recent recipient of our consultancy expertise has been Milton Park.

Milton Park is a dynamic and vibrant science, business and technology park in Oxfordshire, situated between Didcot and Abingdon. Spread across 250 acres, Milton Park is home to 250 companies and 9,000 people.

We are no strangers to the site itself, having supplied Milton Park with 1,520m2 of Meadowscape ProTM Landscape 34 in March 2021 and 60m2 of SuDs Wildflower Turf in July 2021.

At the request of Peter King, Associate Director of Facilities Manager at CBRE (Milton Park), working with landscape maintenance provider, Nurture Landscapes, Wildflower Turf Ltd was asked to examine a number of wildflower-led areas and provide expertise in order to:

Wildflower Turf are passionate about supporting biodiversity and positively impacting our environment and natural habitat. The UK is at the bottom of the G7 league table for how much biodiversity it has left and is placed in the lowest 12% of global countries and territories for biodiversity intactness.

As well as our range of biodiverse products, education and consultancy, another positive impact we have is by supporting national conservation projects, such as the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme and The Big Butterfly Count.

We are driven by our passion and this knowledge helps us understand the kinds of pollinators that each of our range of wildflower products are benefitting. Internally, these projects help develop our team’s knowledge, aiding them to identify both flowers and the pollinators.

We will share our research with our customers and Accredited Partners, enabling us to show in real terms how their Wildflower installations are benefitting biodiversity.

These efforts are also contributing to citizen science, using our time and expertise to inform research.

UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme

The UKPoMS survey season is well under way. In 2023, it began on 1st April and will run until 23rd September.

The Pollinator Monitoring and…

The great glyphosate debate: an in-depth look into the science behind this controversial herbicide, including our stance on its use for wildflower spaces from the research & development team at Wildflower Turf. 

It’s no secret that glyphosate, also known as Roundup, has a bit of a chequered past and it has certainly had its fair share of newspaper column space over the last few years. So it might seem odd to you that we are still recommending its use in certain circumstances, but Helen from our research & development team is here to delve into the science behind it and explain why it’s still one of our recommended options for creating biodiverse wildflower spaces. 

Firstly, a little background information  

Glyphosate is an organophosphate herbicide, or weedkiller, that was developed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto (since bought out by Bayer) in the 1970s.1 It was originally marketed as an agricultural weed control method, and its impact on agriculture was so profound that it has been described “as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease”. 2 It quickly became the most used herbicide…

Biodiversity needs all the help it can get…

Behind our pithy headline is the sobering statistic that is oft-quoted; the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since 1930.

Along with the destruction of over 200,000 miles of hedgerows, 50% of our ancient woodland and heathland has disappeared. The resulting effect on wildlife has been catastrophic, with 41% of all species seeing a decline since 1970 and a complete loss of 150 species in the last 100 years.

With classic meadow plants like Ragged Robin, Field Scabious and Devil’s-bit Scabious on the Near Threatened list, British conservation charity Plantlife is once again encouraging the lawn-loving public to get involved in their No-Mow-May campaign, liberating lawns up and down the country.

There is an astonishing array of diversity of wildflowers growing on Britain’s lawns and simple changes in mowing (or rather, not mowing) can result in enough nectar for ten times more bees and other pollinators. With an estimated 23m gardens in the UK, how lawns are tended makes a huge difference to the prospects for wild plants and other wildlife. Simply popping the mower in the shed for…

As we hopefully can look forward to a warmer May with the promise of 3 bank holidays ahead of us here in the UK, we have another guest blog is from Amanda Winstead.  Amanda is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.

Cultivating a garden can be a personally enriching experience. You have the opportunity to create a space in which you’re surrounded by the beauty of the natural world. The result can be an oasis away from the stresses of daily life, complete with the sights, sounds, and smells of a thriving ecosystem. Not to mention that spending time caring for your garden can be a physically and mentally healthy activity.

It’s vital, though, to be mindful of what flowers you grow in your garden. While exotic flower species may be interesting additions to your landscape, you shouldn’t overlook the value of native wildflowers. Making choices in line with the native plant movement can benefit you, your garden, and the wider environment.

Let’s take a moment to explore the importance of…