Wildflower and Bumble Bee Verges In Caithness

1st June 2012

Last summer the Caithness Biodiversity Group supported by Highland Council TEC Services piloted a project to enhance the wildflower interest of a small selection of our roadside verges. The aim was to protect and encourage wildflower diversity and to increase the amount of pollen and nectar available to our insect life in particular to bees. Some of our roadside verges were left uncut e.g. Dunnet Head and a section of the road at Guidebest. Others were cut later in the year allowing seed to set. We chose 14 verges where there was a variety of wild flower species such as the low growing eyebright , vetches orchids and thyme or where the flowers were nectar rich , for instance red clover, vetches, marsh woundwort and knapweed as these are good feeding for the rare great yellow bumble bee which is found in the vicinity.

A mid-summer cut deprives the bees of vital food and prevents plants from setting seed. We hope, eventually, to be able to provide wildflower corridors and natural ecosystems throughout areas of more intensively farmed land and built up areas, making links with florally rich ground. The selected verges will be monitored and adjustments made if there are issues of safety arising or if the vegetation becomes dominated by agricultural weeds.

In general the pilot project worked well, only requiring a bit of fine tuning ensuring that there were no safety issues. The Highland Council cuts the verges for safety reasons but it also has a duty to protect biodiversity in its work. This year signs will be erected at the start and finish of the lengths of verge to be managed.

Nowadays ,when there is so much concern about our disappearing wildlife it is reassuring to note that there are several schemes nationwide to conserve the best remaining wildflower verges in the country and indeed Plantlife the national wild flower Charity is setting up a campaign with this aim at its heart. We have so many great plants up here in the north to be proud of from tiny eyebrights to showy orchids, it seems a pity to neglect and destroy them.

I am sometimes asked about the best way to manage grassland to enable wildflowers such as cowslips, bird`s foot trefoil, orchids and lady`s bedstraw to flourish. Try giving an early cut in April to remove taller rank grasses followed by a late cut in September or when all the flowers have set seed. Remove the cuttings so that the soil gradually becomes less fertile and thereby more suited to wild native plants. Some of the best wildflowers are seen where there has been heavy winter grazing followed by the removal of the animals for the summer months. Imagine the lawn mower as a mechanical form of grazing animal. The grazing and mowing has its place but it's the timing that`s important.
Constant mowing results in a sterile monoculture otherwise known as a lawn. This has its place in a garden where it can set off flower beds and buildings to their advantage but its benefit to nature is virtually nonexistent. Nature doesn`t really go in for neat and tidy.

There is now a wealth of information in the media and in gardening magazines as to how to manage our gardens, verges and open spaces for the benefit of the natural world. This project involves less than 1% of the total length of the Caithness verges but hopefully it will have a positive effect on our threatened insect and wild flower populations especially those that make Caithness such a special place.

The Dounreay Communities Fund made this project possible.