Since 2012, Plymouth City Council has been committed to increasing the number of wildlife meadows throughout the city which have created a network of 120 sites for wildlife like bees, butterflies and reptiles. Over the years we have gained funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Peoples Postcode Lottery and Biffa to complete a few projects to improve and increase the wildlife areas in the city. Through projects like 'Plymouth's Buzzing' and 'Urban Buzz' volunteers helped to plant over 5,000 wild flower plug plants and 1,900 flowering bulbs to compliment the 52 kg of wildlife seed that has been sown. Since then we have continued to maintain, extend and create more wildlife areas, which have huge amount of benefits to us and the wildlife around us.
In 2020, COVID19 meant we were able to accelerate the opportunity to try something new, we reduced the grass cutting in over 900 areas across the city and allowed areas to grow. This created new wildlife areas and gave us the opportunity to see the potential for new meadow areas across the city. Watch the process and find out more in the video.
Plymouth Meadows 2020 from Fotonow CIC on Vimeo.
Wildlife meadows are managed by a single annual cut in late summer/autumn and removing the hay. Wild flowers thrive on nutrient poor soils so if managed correctly, each year they should get better and better!
Why not find out where the closest wildlife meadow is to you by looking on the interactive map below.
We love celebrating our wildlife meadows so with this in mind we would love to see any of your pictures of your local wildlife meadows. Send them in to us using our Nature Plymouth Facebook or Twitter pages and use the #plymouthwildflowers and #plymouthparksmatter. Don’t forget to include the location and a caption describing why you love your meadow.