Come and be part of a global voice for wild plants and fungi
This year on National Meadows Day, we are campaigning for the protection of irreplaceable meadows – and we need your help!
Our wildflower meadows are a powerful ally in the fight against climate change – but they are in trouble!
“Will you help protect and restore irreplaceable habitats?”
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
Date: Saturday 1 July
Time: 11:00 + 14:00
Location: Gilbert White’s House & Gardens, GU34 3JH
A 45 minute guided walk around the beautiful meadow at Gilbert White’s House and Gardens.
Booking Required
Join us in celebrating National Meadows Day 2023 with a guided walk around our beautiful meadow at Gilbert White’s House and Gardens.
Discover more about the abundance of species of wildflowers and meadow plants growing on our site, including species of orchid and yellow rattle and how our ongoing efforts help maintain it as a vital habitat for butterflies, moths (including day-flying) and other insects.
Please note you must also purchase tickets to the garden to join this walk. Please meet in the Stable Yard promptly at your chosen walk time.
Take part in Plantlife’s National Meadows Day on Saturday 1 July 2023 by visiting your nearby meadows at their midsummer best.
This year we celebrate the value of our local species-rich grasslands, including meadows.
#NationalMeadowsDay
The Coronation Meadows project, originally involving over 80 donor meadows and over 90 recipient meadows, pioneered a path to the long-term creation and restoration of wildflower rich grasslands.
With this and other grassland restoration programmes, almost 5,000 hectares have been created and restored in the UK since 2013.
In 2012, Plantlife published Our Vanishing Flora, a report highlighting the loss of wild flowers from individual counties across Great Britain since the Coronation. In his foreword for the report, Plantlife’s Patron at the time, His Majesty King Charles III, called for the creation of new wild flower meadows, at least one in every county, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Coronation.
The Coronation Meadows project involved donor meadows, the best examples of our remaining meadows, and recipient meadows, specially selected grassland sites located in the same county as the donor meadow from which they received seed to form new coronation meadows.
Coronation Meadows are outstanding examples of our remaining meadows, rich in a wealth of flowers and able to be held up as the flagship meadow for the county.
They will typically be semi-natural grasslands resulting from natural regeneration, managed with traditional methods, and full of local character and identity. The meadows were selected by the project technical group having been assessed and verified against the project criteria.
The Coronation Meadows, known as donor meadows, were used to literally ‘seed’ at least one new meadow (termed a recipient site) within that same county. This was usually done by collecting “green hay” from the Coronation Meadow which is then spread onto the receptor site.
Green hay is a term for ordinary hay that has been cut earlier than usual before it has shed seed. By harvesting in this way, more seed is retained within the loose hay bales and more is transferred to the receptor site, increasing the chances of success. It is spread within a few hours of being cut to ensure the seed remains in good condition.
Plantlife has 5 donor meadows, exceptional examples of wildflower meadows brimming with some of our most important grassland species such as orchids, from Cornwall to north Wales.
Since the project start Plantlife’s donor meadows have made a huge impact for wildlife in their counties.
A healthy population of Green-winged Orchids were discovered at Hustrans, a recipient meadow of Plantlife’s Joan’s Hill Farm reserve’s seed in 2013. Recently the new meadows reached the high standard required to become a new county Local Wildlife Site.
The impact of our reserves doesn’t stop at meadows. In north Wales, our Caeau Tan-y-bwlch Coronation Meadow provided the perfect donor seed for road verges near the 2023 Eisteddfod site in Boduan, Gwynedd, alongside Gwaith Powder Nature reserve.
Plantlife’s aim is to restore another 10,000 hectares across the UK by 2030 to give everyone the chance of experiencing the kind of beautiful and wildlife-rich meadows that were once commonplace.
A celebration of our Coronation Meadows for King Charles III
Latest news
For more information on our grassland meadow maker, and if you think you have land that could be restored into grassland please visit the meadow hub.
The Coronation Meadows Project was led by Plantlife and in partnership with The Wildlife Trusts and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, who worked together to achieve this goal. IT was funded by Biffa.
Location: Sheldon, Peak District, Derbyshire OS: SK 165 698 What Three Word location:///announced.hangs.paradise
Habitat: Limestone Grassland
Deep Dale is one of those special places where, if you visit the right part at the right time of year, you will see swathes of colour spreading over the hillsides.
Sitting within the Peak District National Park, this grassland reserve has a rich cultural history including lead mining and the remains of a Romano-British settlement on a steep-sided hill called Fin Cop.
If you’re heading for a visit, there are many beautiful plants to keep an eye out for. Why not download our plant guide and circular walk map here.
The reserve is an area of grassland between 150-325m above sea level.
It lies within the Peak District National Park where the underlying rock is mainly carboniferous limestone. Most of the grassland is on thin soils over this rock, and so is very calcium-rich.
At the top of the slopes the soil becomes more acidic, while at the foot the soil is deeper and more fertile. Each zone has its own flora.
From Bakewell, take the A6 towards Buxton. Approximately 3.5 miles from Bakewell you reach the White Lodge pay and display car park on the left hand side of the road.
To get to the reserve from the car park, follow the footpath leading southwards. Approximately 200 meters from the car park you reach a stile, which is one of the entrances to the reserve.
Early Purple Orchids and Cowslips at Deep Dale
Meadow Saxifrage at Deep Dale
Mountain Pansies at Deep Dale
Lilly of the Valley
Looking down the hill at the Early Purple Orchids
Orange Tip butterfly on a Cuckoo Flower
A Limestone Fern
Close up of a dainty Bitter Vetch flower
Wood Anemone
Mossy Saxifrage
A downloadable pdf with map and guide of a circular 4 mile walk in Peak District National park , starting from White Lodge Carpark
24 Plantlife
Location: Week St. Mary, Cornwall OS: SX 234963 What Three Word location:///wobbles.cats.digs
Habitat: Culm grassland
Greena Moor is an excellent example of culm grassland where ‘culm’ refers to the rocks underneath the clay soil.
Always sparse, culm grassland suffered a catastrophic decline through agricultural ‘improvements’. The reserve is a fragment of what was once an extensive moorland and mire system, including large areas of culm grassland. It is fringed by wet woodland of alder and willows.
The nationally scarce Wavy St-John’s-wort Hypericum undulatum and Three-lobed Water Crowfoot Ranunculus tripartitus can be found here. Devil’s-bit Scabious Succisa pratensis is an important food plant for the Marsh Fritillary butterfly which are active on the reserve.
Purchase of the reserve was made possible by Unilever. Managed in partnership with Cornwall Wildlife Trust.
Culm measures are a kind of rock from the Carboniferous era that contains thin bands of impure anthracite or culm, found only in Cornwall, Devon, the New Forest and South Wales
Always sparse, culm grassland suffered a catastrophic decline through agricultural “improvements”. The reserve is a fragment of what was once an extensive moorland and mire system, including large areas of culm grassland. It is fringed by wet woodland of alder and willows.
Follow the B3254 south towards Launceston and turn right to Week St Mary.
At the southern end of the village take the minor road signposted to Launceston, and turn right just beyond the Green Inn. The reserve is about a mile further on the left.
Cattle at the Reserve
Pale Dog Violet
A Common Lizard spotted in the grasses
Brush cutting at Greena Moor
Orange tip butterfly on a Cuckoo Flower
Five-spot Burnet Moth on Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil at Greena Moor
A Common Shrew in the undergrowth
Slender St John’s Wort
Location: Cuxton, Medway, KentOS: TQ 716673What Three Words location: ///hood.pull.drives
Habitat: Chalk grassland, arable fields and ancient woodland
Ranscombe Farm Reserve is Plantlife’s flagship reserve, an Important Plant Area for its arable flowers and part of a new National Nature Reserve.
We’re joining a wide partnership of organisations to launch the North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve.
This exciting venture unites our beautiful site with ancient woodlands, vineyards and other chalk grasslands in earning national status for being one of the very best nature conservation sites in England.
Ben Sweeney, Ranscombe Farm Reserve Manager said: “It is truly exciting that Ranscombe Farm, Plantlife’s flagship nature reserve, is now part of such a concerted effort to bring together conservation, community and sustainable land use at the landscape scale. Ranscombe Farm, a wonderful patchwork of arable fields, ancient woodland and chalk grasslands, is a globally significant place for wild plants and other wildlife. Not only is Ranscombe the last wild UK site for Corncockle, it also harbours the largest population of the endangered Broad-leaved Cudweed and a wide variety of rare wild orchids.”
Ranscombe is made up of chalk grassland, arable fields and woodland. The chalk grassland is full of Common Rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium, Clustered Bellflower Campanula glomerata and Wild Liquorice alongside Skylarks and Common Blue and Marbled White butterflies.
Our reserve is also believed to be the last remaining natural site in the UK for Corncockle and home to the largest UK populations of Broad-leaved Cudweed Filago pyramidata. The first record in Britain of Meadow Clary Salvia pratensis and Marsh Mallow Althaea officinalis were here too. It really is an arable flower haven!
Sessile Oak Quercus petraea and Hornbeam Carpinus betulus grow in the Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa coppice. This woodland has existed here since at least AD 1600 and is an important wildlife corridor in North Kent.
Ranscombe Farm is Plantlife’s largest nature reserve in England, occupying a total area of 560 acres on the slopes of the North Downs in Kent. Recently declared as a country park, the reserve provides opportunities for quiet walks amongst attractive countryside with a fascinating flora.
The Ranscombe Farm landscape includes arable habitats, extensive ancient woodland and fragments of chalk grassland. A large part of the site is within the Cobham Woods Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the whole farm is within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Ranscombe Farm is managed in partnership with Medway Council as a nature reserve, working farm and country park. You are welcome to visit at any time, but please keep to the marked footpaths.
The nearest rail stations are at Cuxton, Strood and Rochester (visit National Rail for more information). There are also several local bus services, details of which can be found at Kent public transport or by calling Traveline on 0870 608 2608.
If you are travelling by car, the main entrance and car park are accessible directly from the A228 shortly before the roundabout (when approaching the M2 from Cuxton).
Please be aware that we are doing some conservation work around the reserve this winter. Large machinery may be operating in this woods. Please pay attention to instructions and signage.
We are excited to have joined a wide partnership of organisations in launching the North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve.
Ranscombe Farm will sit in the new National Nature Reserve (NNR) which unites a mosaic of ancient woodlands, vineyards and chalk grasslands in a historic environment where people have lived and farmed for millennia.
The North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve has earned national status because it is one of the very best nature conservation sites in England.
This groundbreaking NNR, full of internationally important wildlife, is the first of its kind to be made up of such a wide partnership of private landowners and public land managers, it is also the first to be partnership led.
We are also undertaking exciting work at the reserve:
All these important work are made possible thanks to the support our members gave to this year’s nature reserves appeal and an additional grant of over £60,000 from the Veolia Environmental trust.
Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve
Corncockle at Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve
Poppies at Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve
Ranscombe in the snow
Snow covered trees in mid-winter
Poppies at Ranscombe Farm, Ben Sweeney, Plantlife
Close up of a Fly Orchid
The reserves team on a visit to Ranscombe Farm
Delve further into the secrets of Ranscombe Farm Reserve with our family expedition walk map
This education pack is designed to help teachers use Ranscombe Farm Reserve for learning outside the classroom.
Location: near Settle, Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire OS: SD 836662 What Three Words location: ///outwards.swims.bigger
Habitat: Limestone pavement and limestone pasture
A unique landscape with spectacular views northwards to the Yorkshire “Three Peaks” of Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent.
The deep fissures in the limestone pavement provide a moist, shady hideaway for a range of woodland plants including ramsons, Dog’s Mercury Mercurialis perennis and Green Spleenwort Asplenium viride. In the pasture you will find Mountain Pansy, Cowslips and Early-purple Orchids.
Plantlife bought Winskill Stones with the help of a public appeal to stop the extraction of rock from its limestone pavement and to allow its varied flora to thrive. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank the Ian Addison Charitable Foundation for their long term support of this reserve.
Other species prefer the low cliffs or humpbacks of limestone around the reserve, and the boldest displays of colour can be found on the ledges out of reach of grazing animals. You may see Kidney Vetch, Horseshoe Vetch, Common Rock-rose and 2 saxifrages, with Meadow Saxifrage usually found in grassland whilst Mossy Saxifrage prefers more exposed conditions.
Where the soil is thinner, or on crumbling limestone, you can find cushions of Spring Sandwort, whose flowers have five white petals that are just a little longer than the green sepals between them. Here too are mats of Limestone Bedstraw, with tiny white flowers and narrow leaves in whorls of six to eight up its stems. Herbs such as this and Wild Thyme are beginning to colonise even the desolate patches of rubble waste and pavement remains in two of the reserve’s fields. Rarities that are harder to spot include Green Spleenwort, Common Twayblade and Wall Lettuce.
Please take care on your visit. Be aware of the terrain and of any roads that pass through the reserve. Note that livestock periodically graze many of our reserves as part of their management.
Location: near Settle, Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire
Grid Reference: SD 836 662
Wild Thyme at Winskill Stones Nature Reserve
Curlew at Winskill Stones Nature Reserve
Kidney Vetch at Winskill Stones Nature Reserve
View out across to Pen y Ghent
Green Spleenwort
Early Purple Orchid
Winskill Stones is a 74-acre reserve of limestone pavement and limestone pasture. Discover more about it with this resource.
Come with us to discover this wild space together and see what we can find.
Location: Checkley, HerefordshireOS: SO 592374What Three Words location: ///paintings.fashion.feels
Habitat: Meadows, pasture and woodland
Joan’s Hill Farm, set in the Wye Valley National Landscapes, is a stunning piece of Herefordshire meadowland alongside a small area of woodland. The reserve is one of several of Plantlife’s reserves to hold that generally scarce Pepper-saxifrage as well as the uncommon Dyer’s Greenweed and Greater Butterfly-orchid Platanthera chlorantha.
Some of the meadow species are less common. Also found here is Dyer’s Greenweed. It looks a little like a low-growing broom, although no more than 70cm tall, but it has no spines and its leaves are unlobed. It is a species of old meadows and grassy pastures, and was once used to produce yellow and green dyes.
The eastern block of pasture land, covering around six acres, hosts species like betony, and in the small area of woodland at the west of the reserve you’ll find many typical woodland plants.
A stunning piece of Herefordshire meadowland, set in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Until relatively recently it was still a working farm (the farmhouse is still privately owned) and our land here is divided into 14 different fields, with one parcel of woodland. Three hundred years ago, the farm had exactly the same boundaries as today, and the pattern of fields has hardly changed since the tithe map of 1843.
The reserve is in two parcels, separated by about 300m, but the largest part is a 40-acre block of meadow. To conserve the flowers and wildlife, we cut the meadows for hay in late summer, after the meadow plants have flowered and set seed. Any regrowth is then grazed by cattle during the autumn, but for the rest of year grazing animals are kept off the meadows to encourage the greatest diversity of plants.
Park at Haugh Wood car park and picnic site, just off the road from Mordiford to Woolhope (grid reference: SO 592 365).
Purchase of the reserve was made possible by Unilever (Timotei) and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Sloping wildflower meadow at Joan’s Hill reserve
A meadow of daisies and orchids at Joan’s Hill Farm
Green-winged Orchid at Joans Hill Farm reserve
Common Carder Bee on Devil’s-bit Scabious
Spindle berries in the hedge
Tree surgeons pruning and removing (a proportion of the) mistletoe, to prolong the lives of our old apple trees at Joan’s Hill Farm orchard.
Veteran apple tree in blossom at The Old Orchard
Rosy Bonnet at Joan’s Hill Farm woodland
A sea of yellow wildflowers at Joan’s Hill Farm
A six-spot burnet moth caterpillar, munching on common bird’s-foot trefoil in the meadows at Joan’s Hill Farm
The Joans Hill Farm reserve has been celebrated as a Coronation Meadow, but did you know it’s also home to royalty? The rare Noble Chafer beetle!
Find out how our work restoring orchards is helping to save this beetle from extinction.
The Wye Valley AONB Partnership are running a project aimed at reversing the decline of the Noble Chafer beetle. Despite extensive surveying on suitable habitat in summer 2022, the beetle was found at only 2 sites in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with one of them being the old orchard at Plantlife’s Joan’s Hill Farm nature reserve.
Fruit trees may live for roughly 100 years and provide decaying wood habitat during the last third of their lives. It’s important that we plant regular replacements and manage our older trees to prolong their lives, ensuring a variation in age and the continued presence of wood-decay habitats.
Last week we were delighted to receive 10 young plum and damson trees for Joan’s Hill Farm, thanks to the Wye Valley AONB Partnership. Not only that, but 2 AONB staff helped our Reserve Manager to plant them and to build substantial guards which will protect them from cattle. Although plums and damsons are some of the fastest species to produce decaying wood, it may be 60 years before they become suitable for beetle colonisation. In the meantime, we will be putting up some artificial ‘beetle boxes’, filled with wood compost, to increase the available habitat, and to act as stepping stones between the two orchard areas at Joan’s Hill Farm.
The Noble Chafer Gnorimus nobilis is a beetle about 20mm long with a metallic green body, speckled with white. The whole body displays a brilliant iridescence which can flash copper, gold and even violet. The adults emerge in June or July and feed on pollen and nectar from a variety of umbellifers, before laying their eggs in the decaying trunks of old trees. The larvae feed on the decaying wood, emerging after 2 to 3 years.
The beetle’s numbers have declined in parallel with the loss of veteran trees and traditional orchards, and it is now classed as Nationally Scarce.
Noble Chafer beetle found at Joan’s Hill Farm by Ellie Baggett – Wye Valley AONB
Only 3.2% of England’s land and sea is protected. This is why nature reserves are so important.
They are protected havens for wild plants and wildlife. Will you help keep them flourishing?
Learn about why our Munsary Peatlands reserve is being put forward for inscription as the world’s first peatland UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Three Hagges Woodmeadow Site Manager Kara shares what volunteers do, from coppicing to nature surveys, and how you can get involved.
Living in Bristol, Rob Hodgson went on his own lichen journey, showing how anyone can go lichen hunting from anywhere.
Temperate rainforest in south-west England is a globally rare habitat, full of special lichens and mosses which can only be found on Britain’s mild, damp Atlantic coastline.
Both temperate rainforests and the species that live there face severe challenges from climate change, air pollution, tree diseases and changes in management.
Temperate rainforests are one of Britain and Ireland’s most important habitats. Like any rainforest around the world, they are home to a vast diversity of plants, with some species at risk of extinction as this habitat is their only known home. Temperate rainforest in south-west England tends to be less wet and somewhat warmer than its counterparts elsewhere in the UK, and it is therefore important for a number of ‘southern oceanic’ lichen and bryophyte species that are rare or absent elsewhere in the UK and Europe.
In Britain the horsehair lichen Bryoria smithii is only known from two rainforest sites in Devon where its entire population would fit comfortably on two sheets of A4 paper and Arthonia thoriana, an achingly rare comma lichen, is not known from anywhere else in the world other than at Horner Wood in Somerset.
Throughout this project we…
•Carried out essential woodland conservation work that will help to protect some of our most rare and threatened lower plants for the future
•Created opportunities for the public and the people who manage these woods to enrich their knowledge about rainforests and the species they are home to
•Engaged schools, families and members of the public through innovative woodland events and training programmes.
Focusing conservation efforts on what rainforest remains is crucial. Practical conservation on the ground has safeguarded five especially vulnerable rainforest sites across Somerset and Devon by clearing invasive species, letting more light in through the canopy and creating a future generation of veteran trees. In total, 73 hectares of temperate rainforest have been directly managed under the project with a further 162 hectares coming under better management as a result of training land managers across the region. Regionally threatened lichens – including the spectacular and rare Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria that resembles human lungs – have been successfully translocated from ash trees threatened by Ash Dieback to nearby Hazel, Oak, and Sycamore trees.
Image by Rachel Jones
Tree lungwort, image by Rachel Jones
Plantlife conservationists Alison Smith & Dave Lamacraft at Horner, Exmoor, image by Rachel Jones
Tree Lungwort Lichen, image by Kate Hind
The beneficial impact is not limited to protecting existing rainforests: working alongside Plantlife experts, a team of trained volunteers have surveyed nearly 300 woodlands across the region using Plantlife’s Rapid Rainforest Assessment, improving our understanding on their condition to help inform future management. They have also discovered 15 high quality rainforest locations by finding new records of rainforest indicator species records such as the oceanic liverworts Greater Whipwort Bazzania trilobata and Prickly Featherwort Plagiochila spinulosa.
Over 60 new species records at sites across the counties have been recorded. Lichens living in rainforests in the South West of England include the delightfully named String-of-sausages Usnea articulata, Floury Dog Lichen Peltigera collina, Tattered Jelly-skin Scytinium lichenoides, Mealy-rimmed Shingle Lichen Pannaria conoplea, and Tumbling Kittens Hypotrachyna taylorensis.
Thanks to the National Lottery players, the National Lottery Heritage Fund (HLF) awarded Plantlife £433,700 to protect the south-west rainforests. The legacy of this project included the release of groundbreaking expert management guidance by Plantlife.
The guidelines, the first interactive, online version to be produced by Plantlife to outline how best to look after these temperate woodlands for the benefit of lichens, ferns and bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) are decades in the making and an output of pioneering conservation work.
These pioneering guidelines will safeguard some of our most rare and threatened lichen communities in the temperate rainforest of Devon, Somerset and Cornwall for the future.
Plantlife’s interactive toolkit for woodland managers, provides you with a better understanding of temperate rainforests and a guide to managing the lichens and bryophytes the lichens that grow there.
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