In November 2025 Kate Bailey, convenor of the Climate Solutions group, met with the u3a Gardening group to encourage them to think about wildflower gardening.
Wild native plants are increasingly rare in the countryside because farmers spray out unwanted weeds (plants growing in the wrong place), use chemical fertilisers in their fields (washed out by rainwater into streams and rivers), aggressively cut their flowering hedges and heavily graze their fields year after year. Farming practices are changing - very slowly - and that's a relief, but for the most part the countryside is still a monotonous green.
The natural world is shrinking; the UK is currently the most nature-depleted country in Europe. WWF estimates that up to 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost in the UK since the 1930s, mainly due to damaging agricultural practises. We hope some of you are keen gardeners or at least interested in what you can do in your own gardens to help nature recover.
There is much more information here if you're thinking of including wildflowers in your own garden.
Useful sources of seeds, plug plants and information can be found here.