A Beautiful, Natural Space at the Heart of the Community
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Becoming a Donor Site for Eden Project's National Wildflower Centre
Our natural world is in crisis. Wildflowers were once a significant part of the British landscape until WWII when huge amounts of meadow were ploughed for arable farming. Today, they account for less than 1% of the British countryside and the UK is recognised as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
Creative conservation is vital so that we can help to bring threatened species back from the brink.
What We Did
The Eden Project's National Wildflower Centre has been delivering creative conservation and new wildflower landscapes all across the UK for over 20 years. It's safe to say that they really know their stuff. We invited them to come and look at the species of flowers and grasses we have growing in the meadow. We wanted to gain their expert advice about best times to cut, how best to maintain our meadow, and anything else we could do to improve the diversity for the wildlife we know thrives here.
How We Achieved It
Steph Knights from Eden's wildflower team came to meet with us and walk around the meadow to study the various grasses and flowers - she is so passionate about nature, and her flower knowledge blew us away! She offered us technical advice and guidance on ecological restoration and the creation of new wildflower landscapes, and a whole host of other fascinating advice regarding seed mixes and provenance, and community engagement approaches. Steph's expertise helps the National Wildflower Centre to deliver high-quality, biodiverse, wildflower-rich landscapes across the UK by way of a Wildflower Bank. They select sites with a rich diversity of wildflowers and grasses, by using a brush harvester or by hand with trained staff and supervised volunteers hand with trained and fully supervised volunteers. This not only helps biodiversity, but it is also a vital way of helping to connect people with nature - which is also a key ethos behind what we do here at the St Eval Community Land Project. A perfect union some may say!
July '24 -The Result
The National Wildflower Centre is currently working hard behind the scenes to create a wildflower corridor as part of the new four mile length of A30 road. Volunteers have been working for the past three years to collect native wildflower seeds from land across Cornwall for this massive project. The final result of all this effort will be a net gain for biodiversity for the whole project. A feat unheard of for a road construction project.
And we were over the moon when Steph asked if she could collect our seed to help the cause. We of course said yes (!) and look forward to helping her in her important mission.
Being asked to be a donor site for the National Wildflower Centre is a huge coup for us, and we are so proud we've been able to nurture the meadow for the past five years to such a standard that it can benefit not only our community here in St Eval, but other urban spaces around Cornwall too.