Modern farming has been devastating for most wild plants, from herbicides, fertilisers, drainage, and much more – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Mike and Nick Kettlewell farm some 400 acres in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds and have left wildflower margins beside fields and planted small copses.
They have converted arable land to grassland to encourage wild flowers to return, such as bee orchids and cowslips. Hedges are cut every three years and grow tall, rich in flowers and fruit, and new hedges planted with traditional species such as wild pear and crab apple.
Vine House Farm in the fenlands of Lincolnshire is an oasis of wild plants in a desert of intensive agriculture. Farmer Nicholas Watts was shocked at the numbers of birds that had disappeared on his land, so he planted native hedgerows. “Where possible we have planted two hedges, side by side, about ten yards apart, thus creating a fantastic wildlife corridor,” he said.
He stopped filling in dykes, hugely important for plants and wildlife, and field margins were left untouched to encourage arable weeds such as fat hen, willow weed and knotgrass. But the single biggest factor that boosted plant life was organic farming – herbicides had drastically reduced the number and diversity of both plants and insects.
In the Dales of Yorkshire, Lower Winskill Farm brought the return of typical meadow flowers by carefully controlling when the pastures are grazed. And on the Isle of Mull, an overgrazed farm cut the numbers of sheep and brought in a small herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, all of which helped the return of wild flowers, including 15 species of orchids.
