Come and be part of a global voice for wild plants and fungi
Help wildlife, connect with nature and take part in No Mow May – straight from your garden by letting the wildflowers grow (in May and beyond!)
There are many different ways you can go the extra mile for Plantlife – from organising a bake sale, running the London Marathon or planning your own plant-themed event.
Our corporate partners benefit from 35 years of experience in nature restoration so they can achieve real impact.
Become a Plantlife member today and together we will rebuild a world rich in plants and fungi
Join us in person, or virtually at this special collaboration event between Bristol Libraries, the British Library’s Living Knowledge Network and Plantlife.
Step into the mysterious world of wild plants and uncover the secrets that grow in our fields and gardens. Join gardener Danny Clarke, Plantlife Specialist Botanical Advisor Sarah Shuttleworth and pastoral literature scholar Francesca Gardner for a lively evening exploring the power and poetry of plants.
From the crucial role of wildflowers in tackling the climate crisis to the surprising history of “lawnmower poetry,” our expert panel will dig into how plants shape our gardens, communities and imaginations. Learn how to make space for nature in your own outdoor spaces and discover how the humble daisy or dandelion could be saving the world.
The event will be live streamed on the day on the Living Knowledge website and the recording will be available after. Visit the website here for more information.
Sarah Shuttleworth has been a botanist for 17 years, and surveys plants and habitats all over the UK. Sarah also teaches botanical identification to beginners and professionals, online and in person, using creative ways to engage and inspire.
She is also one of the spokespeople for Plantlife’s NoMowMay campaign and is often seen on BBC news, radio and other media outlets to promote the importance of plants and their habitats.
Danny Clarke is a British Garden Designer who shot to fame in 2015 as BBC’s Instant Gardener. He has also graced our screens with a host of popular garden makeover shows and horticultural advice.
Danny is now a member of Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Garden team and is passionate about making a difference to climate change and community integration.
Francesca Gardner is a researcher, supervisor, and Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholar at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. She works on long eighteenth-century pastoral and georgic poetry, genres which explore people’s relationship to the natural world.
Her recent article ‘Lawnmower Poetry and the Poetry of Lawnmowers’, published in Critical Quarterly in May 2025, received national and international media attention.
This National Meadows Day, we need your help to call on our governments to protect our irreplaceable meadows – don’t let meadows become a memory!
This National Meadows Day, we are calling on governments to protect our irreplaceable meadows.
Currently the government has an Irreplaceable Habitat list, which includes ancient woodlands, blanket bogs, coastal sand dunes and lowland fens. These habitats have a level of protection, which states, “development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons”.
However, there are no such protections for our ancient meadows and nothing to stop them from disappearing – and once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
Meadows are interwoven into our natural heritage and have been cared for by people for centuries – we cannot let them disappear. Read more about why meadows are so important, here.
Land bordering our Lugg Meadows Nature Reserve is currently facing the threat of development. The meadows by the River Lugg were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, making them at least a decade older than the houses of parliament!
We wouldn’t allow one of our historic buildings to be destroyed for development, so why let it happen to our meadows?
This National Meadows Day we want the governments to live up to their commitments to protect nature by including irreplaceable meadows on the list of other irreplaceable habitats.
A great way for you to take action and help us protect irreplaceable meadows is by writing to your MP or MSP.
You can copy the below text and add your own thoughts or examples of historic buildings or monuments local to you.
Use this website to find your MP’s name and email address, or this website for your MSP if you live in Scotland.
Dear X,
I’m writing as your constituent at [include your postcode] to ask you to help save our irreplaceable meadows.
Please ask the UK Government to live up to their commitments to protect nature, by including irreplaceable meadows on the list of other irreplaceable habitats in England.
Around 97% of England’s wildflower meadows have likely been destroyed in the last century. Without better protections, remaining historic meadows risk “vanishing beneath our feet” after centuries of care by farmers and communities.
These meadows are irreplaceable treasures in our culture and heritage, on a par with our historic buildings and monuments. Their carbon-rich soils and myriad of rare wildlife species have often taken centuries or longer to form. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. We wouldn’t say that the Houses of Parliament could be destroyed and simply re-built elsewhere – the same applies to our historic meadows.
Meadows are the ultimate multi-taskers and provide a wealth of critical benefits, such as climate mitigation and adaptation, nutritious food, wildlife habitat, flooding alleviation, and cleaner air and water.
The Government must live up to their commitments to protect nature by protecting irreplaceable meadows – they must be included on the list of irreplaceable habitats. Planning rules need to safeguard irreplaceable meadows as the true national treasures that they are!
Please see Plantlife’s website for more detail.
Best wishes,
Please ask the Scottish Government to live up to their commitments to protect nature, by including irreplaceable meadows on the list of other irreplaceable habitats in Scotland.
The majority of Scotland’s wildflower meadows and grasslands have already been destroyed in the last century. Without better protections, remaining historic meadows risk “vanishing beneath our feet” after centuries of care by farmers and communities.
These meadows are irreplaceable treasures in our culture and heritage, on a par with our historic buildings and monuments. Their carbon-rich soils and myriad of rare wildlife species have often taken centuries or longer to form. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. We wouldn’t say that Edinburgh Castle could be destroyed and simply re-built elsewhere – the same applies to our historic meadows.
[Your name]
Our meadows are incredible and irreplaceable habitats – and they’re in trouble!
Join us this National Meadows Day to make sure our meadows don’t become a memory.
Plantlife’s National Meadows Day is an annual celebration on the first Saturday of July, to celebrate these incredible habitats and our connection to them, which goes back to our ancestors.
For centuries people have been caring for our meadows – but they are now more at risk than ever.
This #NationalMeadowsDay, we are calling on the government to protect irreplaceable meadows, and we need your help.
How would you feel if someone knocked down an historical building like the Houses of Parliament, just to build it somewhere else? Or reduced Edinburgh Castle to rubble and created a lacklustre replica. It wouldn’t be the same, right?
The same applies to meadows. Without proper protections, the destruction of meadows is continuing.
That’s why we’re calling for irreplaceable meadows to be added to the Irreplaceable Habitats list.
This National Meadows Day, we need your help to make sure our meadows don’t become just a memory.
Take a moment to unwind this National Meadow’s Day.
Join our Three Hagges Woodmeadow Nature Reserve Manager, Kara Garnett, to learn what makes a woodmeadow, how Three Hagges was created and how we manage it for nature.
Through the Countryside Management Association, we are excited to be hosting this Creating and Managing Woodmeadows event at our Three Hagges Woodmeadow Nature Reserve.
We want to invite you to join our Nature Reserve Manager Kara Garnett on site, to learn what makes a woodmeadow, how Three Hagges was created and how we manage it for nature.
We’ll be exploring a number of exciting topics including; what a woodmeadow is, how it differs from other habitats, how Three Hagges was created, how we are managing the reserve with the support of the community.
During the day we will also visit the site’s polytunnel where volunteers grow plants from seed. There will even be the opportunity to visit a new woodmeadow which is currently in development.
This event is free for Countryside Management Association members, and £44.04 for non-members. Find out more and book your space by visiting the Countryside Management Association website.
It’s not just our wonderful wildflowers which benefit from not mowing our lawns this May – our pollinators, birds and wildlife flourish when we manage our lawns for nature!
Pollinators and other wildlife bring our gardens to life with buzzing and fluttering along our lawns, borders and hedges.
From bees to butterflies, and beetles to hoverflies, the wildflowers keep them thriving in our neighbourhoods. Here are just a handful of the species which you can spot in your garden this May and beyond.
And if you haven’t already, why not join the No Mow Movement and help pollinators from home.
Read our blog on creating a pollinator friendly garden here, for our top tips on their favourite flowers!
The dappled pattern of the Speckled Wood is a sign that summer is on its way. With up to two generations of this sun-seeking butterfly being produced in a year, it’s crucial that its caterpillar food plants, long grasses such as False Brome Brachypodium sylvaticum, Cock’s-foot Dactylis glomerata and Yorkshire-fog Holcus lanatus are available. This is why leaving patches of long grass year around in your garden is so important!
Living up to its name, this bumblebee can be seen across the UK in spring with its vividly red tail. Bumblebees like this one rely on a plentiful supply of our wonderfully wild plants such as Red Clover Trifolium pratense and Dandelions Taraxacum officinale to supply them with nectar and pollen. These are food sources for the bees and their larvae – next year’s buzzing bumblebees!
The life cycle of this bright and boldly patterned moth (pictured in the heading) relies entirely on one of our sunniest wildflowers – the yellow Common Ragwort Senecio jacobaea. Its tiger-striped caterpillars munch on this unpalatable plant before pupating underground over winter, ready to emerge as moths and put on another dazzling show next year.
This deliciously named hoverfly is one of our easiest flies to spot, identified by its black and orange bands and mesmerising levitating flight. Despite being disguised as a wasp, this friendly pollinator relies solely on nectar from flat flower heads such as Common Ragwort Senecio jacobaea and Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvestris.
Commonly known as the May Bug, these chunky red/orange beetles only live for 5-6 weeks. Despite their short lives above ground, females rely on grassy areas such as lawns to lay their eggs, where the larvae develop hidden deep underground for up to 5 years. Look out for them on warm evenings, perhaps bumping into your lit window!
By letting us know if you or your community space is taking part, you’ll be added to our map showcasing the collective power that this campaign has.Now sit back and watch the wildflowers grow…
It’s not just wildflowers which benefit from not mowing our lawns this May. Pollinators and other wildlife bring our gardens to life!
If you want to create a home for wildlife in your garden, here’s a couple of nature-friendly gardening jobs to inspire you. If you create the right space, nature will come.
As well as bringing back the bloom to our lawns, there are many ways you can get involved with No Mow May, even if you don’t have a garden.
We can’t wait to see your blooming wonderful communities this No Mow May!
Experience the sights and sounds of the temperate rainforest first hand, with one of our guided walks to celebrate World Rainforest Day.
We are teaming up with Cumbria Woodlands to host a full day of activities for you to explore, learn and wonder at the beauty of our temperate rainforests. Discover the species that survive nowhere else on earth, and meet the experts working to recover these forgotten habitats. There will even be the chance to take a trip into a real rainforest to experience the wonder of these habitats first hand!
You can find out more about the sessions before the walk here.
After lunch, you’ll have the opportunity to take part in a guided walk at one of four different locations in the northern Lakes. You will be guided along your route and your leader will take every opportunity to show you some of the incredible species of Cumbria’s temperate rainforest, for you to experience the magic first hand!
This walk will take place at Great How Wood, and transport will be provided to and from Rheged Events Centre.
This walk will take place at Wesco and Burns Wood, and transport will be provided to and from Rheged Events Centre.
This walk will take place at Naddle Forest and transport will be provided to and from Rheged Events Centre.
This walk will take place at Aira Force and transport will be provided to and from Rheged Events Centre.
Get ready for a full day of celebrations! Discover the secrets of the temperate rainforest through talks, music and even guided walks to experience the wonder of these habitats first hand.
We’re teaming up with Cumbria Woodlands to host a full day of activities for you to explore, learn and wonder at the beauty of our temperate rainforests. Discover the species that survive nowhere else on earth and meet the experts working to recover these forgotten habitats. There will even be the opportunity to take a trip into a real rainforest to experience the wonder of these habitats first hand! You can book onto a walk separately using the links in our What’s On page here.
Our rainforest activities will take place on World Rainforest Day on June 22. The day will begin with a drop-in session where you can explore Cumbria’s temperate rainforest and meet the organisations who are on the forefront of the work being done to protect these special habitats. Tea and coffee will be available.
We will then be showing an exclusive screening of Cumbrian music producer DJ Werkha’s SATURAMA. This beautiful, immersive film shot at Naddle Forest by Joel Hepworth and Ryan Cooper, is designed to show you the magic of temperate rainforests, and is brought to life with a live soundscape installation by Tom Leah. Werka’s SATURAMA inspires us to form a deeper connection with our natural world and protect it as we would each other.
Following SATURAMA, we will be hosting a panel discussion bringing together experts from across the country who represent a variety of different professional sectors. Together we will be exploring how collaboration between sectors can make us so much more than the sum of our parts when it comes to making a positive change for nature.
9am – 10am: Arrival at Rheged Discovery Centre. Attendees must register their parking with the venue to avoid paying a parking fee. Tea and coffee will be available in the Blencathra room, while you take some time to learn about Cumbria’s temperate rainforest from our partners.
10am – 11am: SATURAMA – live installation by DJ Werkha in Screen 2
11am – 11.15am: An opportunity to stretch your legs and grab a hot drink before returning to Screen 2 for the panel discussion
11.15am – 11.45am: ‘How can we work together to save our rainforests?’ – Your chance to ask questions to our experts to discover how everyone can be involved to protect and restore our temperate rainforests
12.00pm – 12.30pm: Lunch will be served in the Blencathra Room. Please indicate when booking your ticket if you have any dietary requirements or allergies
12.30pm – 1pm: Get ready to leave for your guided walk! Walk leaders will be waiting outside in the car park with minibuses ready to transport you to your guided walk location! Please ensure you have booked your space on the guided walk of your choice
1pm – 1.30pm: Travel to guided walks – find out more about the individual walks on our What’s On page here.
1.30pm – 3.30pm: Guided walks. This is your opportunity to experience the magic of temperate rainforests up close! Please inform your walk leader if you have any accessibility requirements or pre-existing medical conditions that they need to be aware of.
3.30pm – 4pm: Travel back to Rheged Discovery Centre
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