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An ambitious Plantlife project to revitalise populations of Juniper in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire to prevent native Juniper from becoming extinct.
Across our downlands, this iconic shrub has failed to regenerate for the past 60 years and as the bushes reach the end of their lives, whole colonies are dying out.
Juniper had been lost from nearly 50% of its historic range and without vital conservation work, is likely to become extinct in lowland England within the next 50 years, in turn impacting on the species it supports, such as Goldcrest, Fieldfare and Song Thrush.
In the Saving England’s Lowland Juniper project, Plantlife joined forces with landowners, supported by Natural England, to revitalise Juniper across southern England. 48 patches of land at nine sites in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire were scraped back to create a grassland habitat suitable for Juniper to regenerate. These efforts focused on hotspots where Juniper is in rapid decline and took place in partnership with the Wylye Valley Farmers Group. Early successional habitat suitable for Juniper regeneration has been created as a result, with the land then seeded with Juniper collected from nearby bushes.
The project areas in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire have been selected as they are key areas on our southern chalk grassland where Juniper population patches can be re-established and where clusters of populations occur in close proximity.
This is the first time Juniper has been regenerated in a near-natural manner on a landscape scale anywhere in the British Isles. It comes following a successful trial, which saw more the 200 new Juniper bushes regenerate within ten years on land scraped by Plantlife in 2009.
The bare ground will also benefit 16 other threatened and scarce plant species which colonise early successional habitat including:
Juniper, Juniperus communis, is a prickly, sprawling evergreen shrub in the Cypress family with short spiky leaves. It blooms with small yellow flowers, followed by ‘berries’ (which are actually fleshy cones) that start green but ripen to blue-black.
It is unusual in its choice of habitats which contract greatly between the north, where it grows on acid soils in cold and rainy places, and the south, where it favours hot, dry calcium-rich soils.
The Saving England’s Lowland Juniper project was funded primarily by Defra’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund, with support from Formula Botanica.
We are continuously looking for further funding and support on the development of grassland habitat.
Sarah Shuttleworth
In the UK we have over 45 species of orchid – which might be more than you thought!
Learn more about this wild and wonderful family of plants with Plantlife wildflower expert Sarah Shuttleworth.
Orchids are part of the largest and most highly evolved family of flowering plants on earth. They are usually highly specialised to a specific habitat, with equally specialised relationships with pollinators, and fungi which live in the soil.
The majority of species reproduce via tiny seeds that are known as ‘dust seeds’ which need perfect conditions to germinate – with some species even relying on specific types of fungi in the soil for them to grow. This means that conditions in the soil and habitat need to be exactly right for an orchid species to thrive, hence why we don’t encounter them all the time.
One UK orchid has gained huge notoriety for its rarity, the Ghost Orchid Epipogium aphyllum. This species is currently regarded as extinct but with hopes for its re-discovery. Occurring in Beech woodlands in deep leaf litter where gets its energy from decaying matter, it’s appropriately named for its pinkish white ghostly appearance rising from dead leaves.
Although orchids are not the most common plant you will find, they do occur in a huge variety of habitats. Traditional hay meadows and pastures can host several species, the most common of these are
Many orchids also specialise in woodlands, for example Early Purple Orchid Orchis mascula, Helleborines Epipactus sp and Bird’s-nest Orchid Neottia nidus-avis (pictured), a fascinating yellow orchid without any chlorophyll that depends entirely on getting its food from decaying material in the leaf litter. There are also species that grow in fens and bogs, pine forests, heathlands and dunes.
The majority of the time due to the specific requirements for growth, orchids tend to be associated with long established habitats, that haven’t had lots of disturbance. Therefore, a nature reserve can often be a useful place to look.
The best time of year to look for orchids tends to be late spring and early summer. Quite a few UK orchids have spotted leaves, making them even more distinctive and easy to spot.
They are perennial plants, and in the UK are formed of a spike of flowers on a single stem. They all share a similar flower structure, despite the huge variety in their appearance. There are 3 sepals (outer protective petal-like parts) and 3 main petals, with one that usually forms a lower lip known as the labellum. This lip is often the largest and most distinctive ‘petal’ structure of the flower.
Often their intricate design and some species astonishing mimicry to tempt pollinators is one of the most intriguing features of these plants. With Bee and Fly Orchids imitating these insects to attract them to land on the flower, mistaking them for a potential mate, and thereby pollinating the flower.
The key features of orchids for identification other than habitat, are the leaves (shape and markings) and the lower lip of the flower (labellum). The easiest species to start with are Early Purple Orchid, Common Spotted Orchid, Bee Orchid and Common Twayblade. This is because they are relatively more common than other species and most can occur in grassland and woodland habitats.
Early Purple Orchids are out amongst the bluebells in older woodlands amongst the Bluebells or edges of woods around mid-May. They are a fuchsia pink/purple colour with minimal patterns on the lower petals, and have spotted leaves at the base.
Green-winged Orchids can be found in species-rich, old meadows, often popping up with lots of Cowslips in mid-May. They don’t have spotted leaves and have green streaks on the pink/purple wing like petals.
Early to mid June is then the best time to look for Common Spotted and Bee Orchids in the species-rich grasslands. They have spotted leaves that occur up the stems, and much paler flowers than the Early Purple, that are streaked and patterned with dark pink.
Bee Orchid is very distinctive with its mimicry of a bee flower and unmarked green leaves.
Common Twayblade has two large, rounded leaves that grow opposite each other, with the flower spike starting as a knobbly spike between the two leaves, growing taller to display small green flowers that appear to have two dangly legs.
It is always exciting to find any kind of orchid, and worthy of a photo! Just remember to be careful not to tread on any nearby orchids that are just coming up. Share the photos with friends, as you never known who doesn’t know that our wonderful UK orchid species even exist.
Further reading
FSC Orchid Guide
The Orchid Hunter by Leif Bersweden
Britain’s Orchids A Field Guide to the Orchids of Great Britain and Ireland by Sean Cole, Michael Waller and Sarah Stribbling
Sun, sand, sea and wildflowers – why not add finding flowers to your list of beach time activities this summer.
From citizen science, to volunteering and from making space for nature to forging a deeper connection with it – conservation is for everyone.
The peat-rich Flow Country, which our Munsary Peatlands are part of, has been given the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.
Robbie Blackhall-Miles
Plantlife’s Vascular Officer Robbie Blackhall-Miles finds an exciting new plant species for Wales. Read more about the Hares Foot Clubmoss and its discovery in Eryri in his words.
New things are always exciting, right? The first time something in your garden flowers, a new patch of Bee Orchids in an unmown lawn, a new record of something rare on your NPMS patch? How about a whole new plant species for your country?
That’s exactly what happened to me in the summer of 2021 – but first, some background.
Clubmosses are a group of plants that really excite me. They are a group of plants that have been around in one form or another since the Silurian period (that’s over 430 million years ago). We have five species here in Eryri: Alpine, Marsh, Fir, Lesser and Stag’s Horn. We had another, Interrupted Clubmoss Lycopodium annotinum, until the late 1830’s when William Wilson last saw it above Llyn Y Cwn (The lake of the Dogs) high above Cwm Idwal. By 1894 J.E. Griffith had declared Interrupted Clubmoss extinct in Wales in his ‘Flora of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire’. I have hunted for Interrupted Clubmoss now for years to no avail – I won’t give up.
A good day out in the mountains for me is a ‘four clubmoss day’. A ‘five clubmoss day’ will take me past just a couple of very specific points where I would see Marsh Clubmoss Lycopodiella inundata as well, and would force me on to a longer and circuitous route to get to the places to see the other four.
When I botanise abroad, the Clubmosses feature as high points in my adventures and I was particularly pleased to find one of our own indigenous species, Stags Horn Clubmoss Lycopodium clavatum growing high in the mountains of South Africa when I was there in 2017.
Seeing these plants, that have remained little changed for such a long time that still exist in our anthropogenic world, really excites me. I always look out for them whether they be tiny plants of Lesser Clubmoss Selaginella selaginoides growing in Calcium rich seepages or fens, or huge sprawling mats of Alpine Clubmoss Diphasiastrum alpinum that grow high on our most exposed sheep grazed mountain slopes.
And so it was that one day in 2021 whilst walking a path that I rarely use, I spotted a clubmoss that really stood out to me. This clubmoss bore a resemblance to Stags Horn Clubmoss, but its growth habit was remarkably upright and the majority of its cones being solitary at the end of its stems (peduncles) rather than in twos or threes on the end of short stems (pedicels) at the apex of the peduncles. In the back of my mind, I remembered another species of clubmoss that had quite recently been confirmed as being present in the UK. So, using the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s Code of Conduct I collected a small sample and took lots and lots of photographs.
On returning home that day I contacted a friend, David Hill, to see what he thought of the find – we were both a little confused and unhappy to declare what we thought it may be. You see, Hares Foot Clubmoss Lycopodium lagopus hadn’t been found further south than Scotland in the UK, and was considered rare there. The confusion for us was that L. lagopus and L. clavatum are very closely related and share a lot of characteristics.
The conversation continued between us for almost a year before I was able to go back to the site and see the plants with fresh cones. This time I carefully collected another sample and even more photographs and took them with me to the BSBI Botanical Conference at the Natural History Museum in London, where I thought I would be guaranteed to bump into Dr. Fred Rumsey – the man who wrote ‘the paper’ on Hares Foot Clubmoss as a UK species.
Sure enough, Fred was happy to declare this to have all the characteristics of Lycopodium lagopus and thus a new member of the Welsh flora.
Seeing our Welsh Clubmosses is exciting, finding a brand spanking new one is REALLY exciting. I had bottled up my excitement at finding this ‘something new’ for an awfully long time. The specimens had sat on my desk for nearly two years before Dr Rumsey had managed to see them. So, I am really pleased to tell you about it now.
We have six species of Clubmoss in Wales again, but not with the one we thought we may rediscover. To see them all in one walk would be a very long walk indeed so a ‘four clubmoss day’ will remain a good day in the mountains, a ‘five clubmoss day’ is still exceptional and a ‘six clubmoss day’, I am afraid, is just exhausting. One day I may be able to have a ‘seven clubmoss day’- that Interrupted Clubmoss may yet still survive somewhere in the mountains of Eryri.
Grasslands like meadows and parks are not just home to wildflowers, they are also an important habitat for waxcap fungi.
Every day, our wild plants and fungi are put at risk from planning decisions, chemical sprays and more. Find out what you can do to help protect nature.
Discover how you can identify the mosses where you live, and read about Lizzie's challenge to learn 10 mosses!
Come and join us for the launch of a project to save Scotland’s most beautiful and most vulnerable species
Sunday 21 May 2023 11am – 2pm Dunnet Community Forest
The north coast is home to some of Scotland’s most beautiful and most vulnerable species.Together, we can help protect them.
Learn more. Drop in to find out about the Species on the Edge four-year programme of conservation activities on the north coast, including how you can contribute to increasing biodiversity in our area.
Come and try. Have a go at surveying potential sites to help us identify the best location to create a butterfly bank. Support will be provided – no experience necessary.
Cake provided. Bring your own picnic or packed lunch. We will supply hot drinks and cake.
Everyone welcome. Craft activities and a nature hunt will be available for children, who must be accompanied by an adult.
For more information about the event, or if you would like to know more about volunteering with us or the Species on the Edge programme of work, but can’t come on the day, contact louise.senior@plantlife.org.uk
Species on the Edge is a partnership of eight of Scotland’s nature conservation organisations. Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we are working collaboratively to safeguard 37 priority species found along Scotland’s coast and islands.
The north coast of Scotland makes for a spectacular office: vast, luminescent skies; rolling seas that change from steely grey to aquamarine with the passing clouds; towering sea cliffs, sand dunes and rocky coves; and, despite having the lowest population density in Scotland, a wonderful assortment of friendly and fascinating folk.
It is also home to some of Scotland’s most vulnerable species: Scottish Primrose, Oyster Plant, Purple Oxytropis, Great Yellow Bumblebee and Small Blue Butterfly.
As a community worker and anthropologist, Plantlife’s Louise Senior is thrilled to be spending the next four years here as part of the Species on the Edge team, working alongside local communities to excite and enthuse people about the natural beauty of the world that we share and taking action to help improve the outlook for these special plants and insects.
The Species on the Edge North Coast area extends from Durness to Dunnet and the work here is being led by Plantlife. As well as targeted conservation action which will include surveying, monitoring and habitat management and will be overseen by Sarah Bird, our Senior Project Officer, Louise Senior, the People Engagement Officer, is responsible for planning a programme of community work.
Combining creative arts, wellbeing and nature to support people to explore their natural environment in new ways will be fun and challenging in equal measure. In the pipeline already are a series of watercolour workshops, a summer holiday award programme for young people and a plan to use public venues to “host” homegrown Scottish Primrose, Oyster Plant and Purple Oxytropis, making these difficult to find plants accessible to everyone.
Are you aged between 16 – 25, based in one of the Species on the Edge project areas, and passionate about your local wildlife? If so, this is an opportunity for you! The Species on the Edge Youth Panel is now open for applications.
If you have an idea about how we can work together or would like to learn more about the Species on the Edge project on the north coast and how you can get involved, please get in touch via email or visit the Species on the Edge website. We are looking forward to making new connections with lots of folk across the north coast over the next few years.
Species on the Edge is a partnership project of eight organisations, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The partnership consists of Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, The Bat Conservation Trust, Buglife, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation, NatureScot, Plantlife, and RSPB Scotland.
Plantlife’s policy team have responded to a Scottish Government consultation on a potential ban on peat sales. This consultation is welcome but long overdue.
Species on the Edge is a partnership of eight of Scotland's nature conservation organisations. We are working collaboratively to safeguard 37 priority species found along Scotland's coast and islands.
A project led by the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest to protect and restore this globally important habitat
Dave Lamacraft
Dave Lamacraft, Plantlife’s Lichen and Bryophyte Specialist, heads out to discover a wealth of extraordinary lichens which call Wales’ rainforests home.
I’m lucky enough to have worked in our temperate rainforests for well over a decade now, and although much of our recent work here at Plantlife has had a focus on rainforest areas of England, through our LOST project in the Lake District and the Building Resilience project in South-West England, both funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, I’ve had the opportunity to get out into some of our Welsh rainforest in past weeks and been reminded just how special they are.
The first of these visits was to the National Trust’s Dolmelynllyn estate at Ganllwyd to look at some transplants of Lungwort lichens that we undertook 5 years ago. This was initially an attempt to rescue these lichens from an old Ash tree that was literally clothed in Lungwort lichens, of three varieties, that blew down in a summer gale. Transplanting these big leafy species is relatively straightforward to do in practical terms but hard to get right, the skill is in finding the right niche and one that’s away from the chomping teeth of slugs.
Success is far from guaranteed, and the majority of these transplants had succumbed to slug browsing. There were some notable successes though, with this ‘lob scrob’ Lobarina scrobiculata thriving on a Sycamore, all the better as this is one of the rarer lungwort lichens in Wales. The area where this was transplanted has spectacular communities of lichens on old Ash, Oak and Sycamore trees, probably the best display of lungwort lichens in Wales with abundant Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria, Parchment Lichen Ricasolia amplissima, ‘Stinky Stictas’ Sticta fuliginosa and Sticta sylvatica and Blue Jelly-skin Leptogium cyanescens.
Another site visit took me to a remote woodland near Trawsfynydd where we’re helping Natural Resources Wales work out how best to manage this woodland. Although only a few miles up the road from Ganllwyd this is a very different woodland to Dolmelynllyn being at higher altitude and exposed to higher levels of rainfall this favours different communities of lichen and bryophyte with what could be considered our ‘cloud-forest’ lichens and a rich ‘hyperoceanic’ bryophyte flora including many rare species.
Image by Dave Lamacraft
This has also reminded me just how diverse our rainforest is, in the same that way that no two wetlands, estuaries or mountains are the same, no bit of temperate rainforest is the same. They all differ according to geology, topography, aspect, climate, history, management etc; our temperate rainforest in South-West England is quite different to that in Western Scotland, with Wales somewhere in between. They are especially influenced by ‘oceanicity’ – the degree to which proximity to the Atlantic influences climate – and broadly speaking they are drier and sunnier to the south and much wetter to the north.
This basically means that you’ll never see the same things twice and there’s a lifetime of exploration to be had. I’d urge anyone to grab a hand lens (by no means essential, but definitely helps appreciate the small things) and head out to explore.
Plantlife’s Vascular Plants Officer Robbie Blackhall-Miles finds an exciting new plant species for Wales.
We’re taking it right back to basics – explaining what makes an invasive plant species, and why they are becoming so problematic both in Wales, and globally.
What do the peaks of the Eryri mountains and our garden lawns have in common? Learn how grazing works to protect our most species-rich habitats.
Alistair Whyte, Head of Plantlife Scotland shares his thoughts on Scotland’s relict plant, Purple Oxytropis
“Sloping rocky banks and red sandstone cliffs. Extinct.” This is the brief and rather depressing entry for Purple Oxytropis Oxytropis halleri in my old Flora of Angus book (Ingram and Noltie, 1981).
The plant has been gone from Angus for a long time, as it has from North Queensferry and several other locations in Scotland. It’s one of our rarest wildflowers.
Purple oxytropis is an impressive plant – a member of the Fabaceae (legume) family, with purple flowers, silky leaves and growing in sometimes large colonies in the few places where it does still exist. In the UK, the species is only found in Scotland. Elsewhere, it’s only found in the high mountains of central Europe.
Its Scottish distribution is described as ‘relict’. Most of its remaining populations are coastal, with its stronghold on the north mainland coast. There are a very few populations on the north-east coast, and one extremely isolated population away down on the Mull of Galloway, in the south-west. It’s also found near the summits of three Scottish mountains, two in Perthshire and one in Argyll.
It’s likely that it was never a very common plant, and this country is very much on the northern edge of its range. But there’s no doubt that it was more widely distributed in the past than it is today. Some populations have been lost due to development destroying its habitat. The species is vulnerable to over-grazing– it’s tasty to grazing animals (of which we have an increasing number in Scotland). It also likes open conditions, so won’t thrive in areas that get too encroached with scrub or trees.
Purple oxytropis is dependent on pollinators, mainly bees, to successfully reproduce. Anything impacting on these pollinators will in turn impact on the ability of purple oxytropis to survive.
Its remaining isolated coastal populations are also extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Rising sea levels could be catastrophic, and associated erosion could spell disaster. The species isn’t widely distributed enough to withstand local impacts like this. A recent study carried out for Plantlife concluded that it is probable that the Mull of Galloway population will become extinct if no new plants appear and highlighted the threat that a single event such as a landslip could have on the fragile population there.
The isolated nature of the remaining populations means that the plants are likely to exhibit low genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding, which will weaken them and make their future survival less likely. However, We don’t know enough about the genetics of the species to be sure.
How much should we care about trying to save a species which is already on the edge of its range? Surely, it’s doing okay in the Alps? The problem with that argument is simply, where do you draw the line? If we lose it from Scotland, does the next closest population become the ‘edge of range’ one which it’s OK to lose? And then the next?
If we want to live in a country that’s rich in wildlife, we must look after the species that make their home here. The problems facing Purple Oxytropis are difficult but not insurmountable. And by tackling the problems facing this species, we will also address these problems for a host of other species which are facing similar threats.
Looking at a map of Purple Oxytropis distribution over time is like watching a series of lights blinking out one by one. I don’t think anyone wants the map to go completely dark. It’s up to us to keep as many lights on as possible.
Plantlife is taking action for Purple Oxytropis through Species on the Edge partnership.
Saving the endangered Three-lobed Water Crowfoot plant, which is considered as an aquatic buttercup species.
New pools are being created at Greena Moor, a secluded Cornish nature reserve, for the endangered Three-lobed Water Crowfoot Ranunculus tripartitus.
The work was funded by Natural England through their Species Recovery Programme and charitable trusts including the Stuart Heath Charitable Settlement. Nature Reserves Manager Jonathan Stone have been working to protect the ‘star’ of Greena Moor.
Three-lobed Water Crowfoot is an aquatic member of the buttercup family, the plant has small, white, starry flowers. Like most crowfoots, it has two kinds of leaves; the surface leaves are three-lobed and broad, but the underwater leaves – rarely seen with this species but seen here in this photo – are finely divided and feathery.
In March 2020, Three-lobed Crowfoot occupied only two small pools near the ford, covering an area of just 7m2, and it was clear that a lack of suitable shallow water bodies was preventing further spread of the species at Greena.
Grazing also plays an important role, helping to control competing vegetation and distributing seed. The cattle grazing at Greena appears ideal, and on the Cornish Lizard heaths Three-lobed Crowfoot has become far more common under similar management conditions.
The nature reserves management team have created 10 new pools to encourage more Three-lobed Crowfoot plant. We are very hopeful to seeing similar increases of this beautiful endangered plant over the coming years.
Alistair Whyte, Head of Plantlife Scotland shares his thoughts on Scotland's Plant Relict, Purple Oxytropis
Discover 4 new walk ideas and Scottish spring adventure inspiration from Plantlife Scotland’s Communications and Policy Officer, Erin Shott.
The effort Greena Moor Nature Reserve management team put in place to save the Three-lobed Water Crowfoot.
Join Senior Ecologist Sarah Shuttleworth for a deadwood date, as she shares what gets fungi swiping right on the wood wide web.
Back from the Brink was an ambitious partnership initiative to save some of our most threatened species from extinction.
Back from the Brink was an ambitious partnership initiative to save some of our most threatened species from extinction and reverse their fortunes, putting them back on the road to recovery. A coalition of seven of the UK’s leading wildlife charities, including Plantlife, came together with Natural England to deliver a suite of 19 conservation projects across England. Plantlife led four of the projects – Colour in the Margins, Cornish Path Moss, Dorset’s Heathland Heart and Lesser Butterfly Orchid, and was a key partner in a further two – Ancients of the Future and Shifting Sands.
An extensive programme of 69 reintroductions of target arable plants was undertaken to establish new populations, trial new methodologies and develop best practice.
New areas of bare ground were created for Cornish Path Moss, which at the start of the project was only found at three sites in the world.
Over 400 patches of heathland microhabitat were created or restored at 13 sites across the Dorset Heaths to benefit 19 target species that are dependent on them including, Marsh Club-moss Lycipodiella inundata, Yellow Centaury Cicendia filiformis and Pale Dog Violet Viola Lactea.
Trial conservation management was carried out at nature reserves in Devon and Cornwall, design to increase populations of Lesser Butterfly-orchid .
Habitat was restored at 12 key sites in the Breckland, Norfolk and Suffolk, including forest rides and bare ground plots for the rare plant species that thrive in the conditions there. Field Wormwood and Prostrate Perennial Knawel were introduced at nine sites throughout the area
The life of over 200 important veteran trees was extended so they can continue to provide valuable habitat for years to come, whilst the newcomers mature. Three threatened species of lichen were translocated and 40 trees were inoculated with a threatened species of fungi.
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, Bat Conservation Trust, Buglife, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Natural England (lead) and RSPB.
National Lottery Heritage Fund with support from the People’s Postcode Lottery
Drive positive change for your local wildlife and local communities with Plantlife's LNRS Local Nature Recovery Strategy guidance.
Since the 1930s, 97% of wildflower meadows across England and Wales have disappeared – and we're creating positive change.
Read how Plantlife is working with governments and landowners to tackle nitrogen – one of the greatest threats to our wild plants, lichens and fungi
Robust and systematic monitoring of plant species, the foundations of our habitats and ecosystems, is essential in understanding the effects of growing pressures on our wild plants and landscapes.
Built on partnership and government funded research, the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) is a nationwide project, supported by hundreds of dedicated citizen scientists, heading out annually to conduct botanical surveys at their allocated sites.
These long-term botanical surveys in random 1 km squares continue to provide a growing dataset across the UK, enabling us to study the abundance and diversity of plants through time, within 30 different habitats.
For example, data from four of the scheme’s best surveyed broad habitats have already been used to create a new UK biodiversity indicator. We have also been busy working on our large dataset investigating the impacts of climate change and other environmental pressures on our habitats.
NPMS volunteers, from beginners to experienced botanists, are asked to survey 5 small plots within their allocated 1km survey square twice a year, with the first surveys kicking off in April. They can do this at one of 3 different survey levels depending on their experience and confidence.
The beginner level surveys for example ask volunteers to record around just 10-15 common and easily identifiable species at each plot. Volunteers have full access to their own data and the whole NPMS data set, along with a raft of guidance and free training materials and opportunities.
The National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) is organized and funded by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Plantlife and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. The NPMS is indebted to all volunteers who contribute data to the scheme.
Managing or making meadows, whether in a lawn or larger site, can sometimes lead to prickly problem plants like docks or nettles. Follow our expert advice for managing problem plants.
Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow. Here’s everything you need to know.
Pollinators in the UK are in decline. But there are things you can do to be more pollinator friendly and help these important creatures.
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