Children sow new wildflower meadow

Last week we spent a wonderful afternoon with the children at Milborne Port Primary school, sowing their new wildflower meadow. After nearly a year’s delay due to the lockdown, finally they were able to realise their dream of creating a haven for nature in the heart of the village.

The new meadow was once a football field, which became disused with the development of new sports facilities in the village. The meadow has the benefit of being surrounded by hedgerows, which under the Rewilding Schools Programme will now be restored and managed for wildlife by cutting on a 3-year rotational basis. And, with other habitats such as woodland and unimproved grasslands nearby, this wildflower meadow has all the makings of becoming a very special and important place for wildlife and children alike.

EuCan Volunteers help to prepare the meadow.

It was so good to see the genuine interest of the children, and their very real hopes of attracting butterflies, bees and birds to this restored land. After sowing the wildflower mix, kindly donated by Peerce Seeds, we then pretended to be herbivores stamping the earth to help the seeds make contact with the ground. This led on to a discussion about lost species that no longer roam our lands, such as the bear, the wolf and the lynx. We told a story of hope - that while we may not yet be able to see the return of the lost carnivores and apex predators of Britain, we can through young people, such as these children who are learning to care for nature, prevent further catastrophic wildlife decline by wildling and rewilding our own patches of land, and inspiring our friends and families to do the same.