Urban flowers for wildlife

[goosey]

PLEASE NOTE This is actually Paul m 's post - sorry Paul!

Cities can, of course, be vast deserts of concrete or utility grass which offer no support to wildife. So it's good to see various moves to make cities and town more wildlife friendly (taking 'wildlife' in the widest sense including invertebrates!) .

One way of doing this is by sowings of mixed annuals such as these small beds in the centre of Berlin: annuals, perennial, shrubs and grass which isn't mowed too much!


It is being done on a grander scale in my own city, many hectares of grassland on housing estates are livened up by sowings of annuals:

Such sowings not only provide a basic (if eccentric) habitat for animals but they provide useful islands for migrating animals.

Should be noted that these are mainly exotic (non-native) plants - gives a much longer nectar, pollen and seed period.

[goosey]

Small spaces of green and wildflowers make such a difference to our town, it use to give the feeling of space and peace. If you had asked me even 5 years ago I could have named umpteen places like that around town. Sadly everywhere I look, there are houses being built on any half decent bit of space which was green these days. Even our very own little nature museum which was geared up for younger school children with its wildflower garden tended by volunteers has been closed to make room for flats. It may be sceptical or even bitter to say, it doesn’t seem to happen in the more affluent areas of our town!
Desperately trying to think of something positive! What is lovely though when you come into town on the main road we have the Noordzee Kanaal on the right of us with a steep grass embankment running down to it, but along the middle of the road is a grass verge, in the spring and summer this looks spectacular with all the wild flowers that grow there – it is just a mass of colour. It is so cheering to see it that time of year – now of course it’s just grass. There does seem a lot of planting on roundabouts. This isn't a patch on how green and floral our town use to be.

Just look at this lovely image of Cherrybee's. I know its not an urban evironment, but is a tiny area, and it has so many types of plants. It shows that every small bit of wasteland could be utilised for wildflower growing!

[goosey]

Since Pauls post went up on Sunday, when I have been out I have realised there are quite alot of small, infact some tiny areas around out town which are planted up. These photos are from a car park which has been made attractive by planting and it's not the only car park that has done this. I cycle past this a few times a week, it looks lovely in Summer and I have seen butterlies there, if I took time to look I expect there are loads of insects. It's not bad now and there were blackbirds pecking around when I got there. This is also a triangular area like the photo from Berlin that Paul started off with.





This third photo is of a plot that runs down the middle of bike lanes.



We have lots of streets with trees in town thank goodness. Some people take responsibility for the little bit of earth underneath the trees in front of their houses. People have planted them up and tend them, so you can get a right mix of tastes from tree to tree. Some have just lavender or box others obviously what people have left over, there are wildflowers, some are planted up with bulbs aswell, others are just ignored and bare.
This isn't the best time of year to find examples of this, but here are three in one street.






The trees are planted between parking bays in front of the houses.

[goosey]

1. Just look how wonderful this is.This is the village of Hawkshead in The Lake District (UK), July 2009. It is not just this tiny street which has masses of flowers, but the rest of the village has planters, window boxes and hanging baskets.
Not exactly urban but it really shows what can be accomplished even without a garden.

1.


2. This believe it or not is in the middle of a city, York (UK), July 2009. We wandered round the side of a shop and this is what faced us. The river Foss meandered through on the way to join the River Ousse.

2.

[goosey]

I am not quite sure what to make of them or the reasoning behind having small patches of grass under the tram lines. There were two others like this close by. Although its green and urban I don't hold out much hope for the insects that live on them .