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As we all look settle back to work after a glorious Jubilee weekend, we have another very welcome guest blog, this time from Max Mitchell who is a freelance writer.

Many factors, including technology, now influence people’s interest in learning about wildlife. The development of an appreciation for nature is rather critical for the preservation of the environment and its floral biodiversity. There is no time to wait, as many plant species are already classified as endangered. As a result, wildlife education should be prioritised as soon as possible to solve the problem.

According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) biodiversity and climate change report, economic development and human activity have had an impact not only on marine resources but also on land resources. This includes not only forests and soils but also wildflowers.

With globalisation accelerating, irresponsible human behavior has already reduced the number of wild plants. As a result, approximately 800 plant species are now considered endangered. Many factors contribute to the decline in…

Things have been busy at Forge Farm, our newest production site.

It’s been all hands on deck at our new production site, Forge Farm, and the team in Shropshire have been busily preparing for the summer months that lie ahead.

Wildflower Turf Ltd took occupancy of Forge Farm in October 2021, with the daunting challenge of reinventing the former dairy farm and transforming it into a new home for our Wildflower Turf® and Meadowscape Pro™ products.

We spent the tail end of last year altering the Yard area and rehoming a good deal of cattle manure! The cattle rails in the sheds were all cut down and we moved and installed concrete panels to make bays for our various different soil ingredients. We also set up a workshop filled with new equipment. December really did feel like Christmas with deliveries of workshop items arriving each day.

The start of the New Year saw ongoing maintenance around the Yard, with the installation of new water pipes and the cleaning and repairing of gutters. We were also ready to take receipt of additional new materials and so further areas in…

Now that we are in May, we are reflecting on Earth Month, looking at the origins of this important, annual event and shine the spotlight on a school that is walking their sustainable talk.

April is Earth Month and millions of people around the world also mark Earth Day, on April 22, to show their support for the environment. As the climate crisis becomes increasingly more serious, each Earth Day that comes along takes on greater significance.

The first Earth Day was the brainchild of US senator and environmentalist Gaylord Nelson and took place in 1970 to highlight the importance of clean air and water, following a 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The event saw an astonishing 20 million people across the US taking to the streets – around 10 per cent of the country’s population at the time.

However, it could be argued that the stage had been set for change almost 10 years earlier, with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller, Silent Spring, in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links…

Landscape Institute hosts Climate Emergency Conference

Held last week, the Landscape Institute’s ‘Mitigating the Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies’ conference was delivered virtually over three days.

The conference debated a number of important themes and discussed imperative actions, exemplar practice, core skills and thought leadership around mitigating the climate emergency. Delegates heard from a range of established speakers on the topic, and there was also the opportunity to contribute to the debate by connecting and networking with people from across the landscaping profession and wider, associated fields.

On Day One, Anthony Dewar, Professional Head Buildings and Architecture, Network Rail, together with Matt Winfield, England Director at Sustrans and Selina Mason, Director of Masterplanning, Lendlease debated “what are the contradictions for landscape designers when designing for Net Zero?”

In attendance at this discussion, we were interested to hear from the contributing parties that the main barriers to adopting more biodiverse, nature-based solutions can be summarised as follows:

As we all look forward to Easter and hopefully some time off spent in the garden, we have another very welcome guest blog, this time from  Madeline Miller.  Madeline is a writer at Best legit essay writing services and Lia Help. She covers gardening tips and has a particular interest in wildflowers. She also is a blogger at Big Assignments.

Many people are now looking to create wildflower meadows, whether that’s in their own back gardens or on  a larger scale. They’re certainly better for the environment, and are more beautiful than a regular lawn. However, they can be more difficult to bring to life than a regular lawn. Here’s why your meadow (if you are seeding) may not be succeeding, and what you can do to fix the problem.

Not Doing The Right Preparation

 There are lots of seed mixes on the market that promise you a wildflower meadow,  but when you sow it where you want it, none of them bloom. This is often because you haven’t done the prep work before buying those seeds.

“You need to know…

Wildflowers compliment a stunning eco-house in the Chiltern Hills

This month we are sharing a wonderful project that has been a real labour of love for one of our clients. Ilona and Andrew, together with their two children, have followed their dream of building something very special in the magical Chiltern Hills and we’re thrilled to have been invited along on their journey.

The story starts back in 2016, when the family happened upon their chosen space and their vision for a sustainable, environmental and eco-friendly home and garden began.

Inheriting a 1950’s bungalow, and determined to progress their ideas, the family appointed architectural designer and television presenter, Charlie Luxton, to assist them to bring together their sustainable build aspirations.

The original house structure was demolished in August of 2020 to make way for a contemporary eco-build.  The architectural design incorporates a thoughtful and sustainable approach aimed at keeping energy use very low and heating and cooling to a minimum which will make for a much more comfortable living environment. The huge, high performance, triple-glazed windows contribute to the airtightness of the building and the glazing ‘lantern’ allows light to flood to all corners of the building throughout the year.  The adventurous…

Introducing our Authorised Reseller Programme

Regular readers of our blog posts will long be familiar with our Accredited Partner programme, whereby we assist landscaping professionals with unrivalled insight and training in the delivery of successful wildflower landscapes.

Our Accredited Partners are entitled to exclusive discounts on the full range of Wildflower Turf products, receive referrals from Wildflower Turf Ltd for landscaping jobs, are provided with access to a dedicated Accredited Partner Manager and receive online and offline marketing support.

(If you would like to learn more about our Accredited Partner programme, our blog article from 2019 is a great place to begin.)

In response to an ever-increasing demand for wild flower solutions, and along similar lines to our Accredited Partner programme, we have launched an Authorised Reseller scheme.

We are the leading supplier of wildflower products and expertise in the market but we are always looking for quality like-minded partners who wish to enhance their own product range to their customers by offering our premium wildflower solutions.

As well as access to trade discounts on our industry-leading wildflower products such as Wildflower Turf® and MeadowScape…

Happy New Year and welcome to our first blog of 2022.

We are delighted to hand our blog over to a special guest contributor this month!  Writer Emily Henry works at Academized and Essay Services. Emily writes about plants and wildlife. She is also a tutor at OX Essays

Bees are responsible for pollinating all kinds of plants – trees, flowers, and everything in between.  Whilst bees tend to be drawn to most flowers, they do have their favourites. Some flowers have unique qualities that bees deeply enjoy. And, believe it or not, you might have one of these flowers in your own garden.

Here are the top 12 wildflowers that most attract bees:

Daisy

Daisies are designed in a way where they offer a unique way for pollinators like bees to get to the pollen and nectar. Besides their light scent and bright colors attracting bees, the head of the daisy is the most attractive. The single flower head on a daisy is made of the ray flower part and the center disc. While the ray flower part doesn’t produce any pollen, the center disc does, since the disc is made up of tiny flowers. So, the ray flower acts…

Peat and Plastic. Begone!

With COP26 now a fading memory (read our review of the summit here), we wanted to conclude our blog posts for the year with an update on what we, here at Wildflower Turf Limited, are doing to ensure that we “do our bit”.

Our two biggest targets as we look towards the future are to reduce peat use and to reduce the use of plastic. We continue to push research and development boundaries and sustainability is one of the core goals of our R&D department and at the forefront of our product development programme.

In line with public concern about the damage peat extraction does to our natural environment, Wildflower Turf Limited is committed to an annual reduction in our use of peat as a growing medium and, aligned with the England Peat Plan, aim to eliminate the use of peat by 2030.

We are already continuing to reduce the peat content of our turf, with a goal to be completely peat-free by 2026, ahead of the 2030 target set out in the England Peat Plan. And we are very pleased to announce that one of our peat-free goals has already been met…

Take a sneak peek behind the scenes…

Research and Development (R&D) is a pivotal part of everything we do here at Wildflower Turf Ltd.

Our product enhancements and new product development initiatives are driven by our meticulous R&D department, headed up by Dr Janine Robinson, and we invest heavily in order to continue to push boundaries and innovate.

Our monitoring process allows us to generate a large data set that contributes to an evidence base of understanding. We will continue to strive to establish Best Practice protocols for Turf Management and we look forward to sharing our learnings with you over time.

The spring and summer months are an especially busy time for us as the growing season provides many insights. Growth will differ year-on-year and variations in the weather can influence a meadow considerably; there is some delight to be taken from not quite knowing what a meadow will look like from one year to the next. There is also great joy to be had as each season adds a new complexity and dynamic to the changing wildflower landscape.

Our R&D plots are located at our Hampshire growing site and we’ve collated some of our observations from the spring and summer months of…