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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!)
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Artificial lawns are becoming an increasingly common sight as we walk through our local neighbourhoods.
But what is the impact on the environment and our wildlife with this new plastic grass carpeting our communities?
Tragically, approximately 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have been destroyed since the 1930s.
This makes the loss of remaining grasslands – whether the garden lawn or on the road verge – even more important for wildflowers, insects and other wildlife. Flower-rich lawns carpeted in daisies, buttercups and clover provide a bounty of pollen and nectar for pollinators who simply cannot survive in a plastic environment.
With more than 20 million gardens in the UK, artificial grass in our gardens is an opportunity lost for nature’s recovery.
While there is a time and place for artificial grass in, for example, high performance sports pitches in towns and cities, when it comes to gardens you simply can’t beat the real thing. Grassland habitats such as garden lawns are home to thousands of wild plants that, in turn, support a wonderful wealth of other wildlife.
Using the latest estimates, an artificial lawn of 60sqm for an average urban garden will create about 435kg CO2e of greenhouse gas emissions through the plastic manufacturing process.
Simply by leaving your lawn as real grass and introducing less frequent mowing, you’re reducing the carbon emissions of your lawn. You’ll also be creating a habitat by allowing wildflowers to flourish, which have the potential to absorb even more carbon into our soil for the future.
Artificial turf also adds to the heat island effect; this is when often urban areas become hotter than rural areas, which is amplified during heatwaves. As well as being too hot to enjoy in summer, micro-plastic shedding artificial lawns are difficult to recycle – a problem we don’t want to be leaving future generations to deal with.
Artificial grass is not just to the detriment of wildlife but to us, too; children can’t make a daisy-chain on a plastic lawn.
The increasing popularity of artificial grass underlines how disconnected we are becoming from the natural world around us. Polling undertaken by YouGov for Plantlife revealed that 80% of people couldn’t name Common Dog-violet which grows in 97% of the UK, and only 11% of 16-24 year-olds felt confident they could name wild flowers. Given this steep decline in knowledge and appreciation which is also reflected in further education, it is perhaps little wonder that many of us feel comfortable with artificial ‘low maintenance’ solutions, despite warnings about global plastic pollution.
The answer is simple – a real grass lawn is best for nature.
For those lucky enough to have a garden or access to green space, with living grass and wildflowers, they can prove a wonderful place to reconnect with nature if managed for people and wildlife. While our gardens need to work well for all – more frequently mown areas provide functional zones for children to kick a ball or people to unwind on a deckchair – that doesn’t mean they cannot also play home to wildlife – from finches feeding on seed-heads to slow worms slithering in the grass. Areas of infrequently mown turf are win-win. They require little maintenance and offer opportunities for so many species of plants and other wildlife.
No Mow May looks to highlight the positive steps that people can take to make space for nature. At a time when people may feel disconnected or disempowered in the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis, individual actions add up to a community network of wilder lawns. Connected habitats are exactly what our wild plants, fungi and wildlife need to thrive.
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!
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.
The nature and climate crises are inseparable challenges: healthy species and habitats provide essential solutions to climate change, absorbing carbon and increasing resilience. Yet many carbon-focused initiatives are blind to the importance of plant and fungi diversity or can even do more harm than good, causing damage and destruction to our most precious wildlife.
Nature-based solutions to climate change rightly focus on trees, wetlands and peatlands, but often overlook the importance of the world’s permanent grasslands. From the smallest British wildflower meadow to the great steppes, savanna and prairies, these grasslands are home to thousands of species, many of which are threatened and endangered.
Grassland ecosystems are often undervalued in climate mitigation strategies. Yet they store between 25-35% of the world’s land based – or terrestrial – carbon, 90% of it underground. While grasslands, savannahs and rangelands store less carbon per area than forests, their underground stocks are considered safer in areas of high fire or future logging risks. Grasslands with high biodiversity can sequester even more carbon and be more resilient to the effects of climate change.
In a briefing and case studies published jointly with WWF, we demonstrate how grassland protection and restoration can support a sustainable and equitable food system, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, sequester and store carbon, provide resilience to extreme weather events, support food security and rural livelihoods, improve health and wellbeing, and boost biodiversity.
For Plantlife and its partners, this highlights the fact that wild plants and fungi are at the heart of tackling the biodiversity and climate change crises together. To promote the wider recognition of this internationally, Plantlife has worked across the world to build a growing global network of Important Plant Areas (IPAs), which contain some of the best wild plant and fungi species and habitats. You can explore the world of IPAs through our interactive story map.
We are calling on governments around the world to align their climate and nature goals in international agreements as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. With ambitious goals in place, we need local communities, leaders, and governments to identify and recognise those precious sites for wild plants and fungi, and then collaborate on their protection or restoration – for nature, climate and people.
We, together with Birdlife International, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and WWF . are urging governments, investors and business globally to acknowledge the invaluable role grassland plays in climate change, nature recovery and sustainable food production.
Grasslands, savannahs and rangelands are huge carbon stores, vital global resources forbiodiversity, food and freshwater security, and offer many ecosystem services to support climatemitigation and adaptation.
Case studies on the importance of grasslands ecosystem in the UK, Brazil, Mongolia, Ethiopia and Kenya.
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.
This ‘death by a thousand cuts’ is pushing many species to the brink of extinction. Yet in local communities around the UK, people are running fantastic campaigns to stand up for wildlife and protect their local sites from being destroyed.
If you believe that wild plants and fungi are at risk at a site near you, here’s a few ideas for what you can do:
Find out which species are found on and around the site – fungi, plants and animals. Your local Wildlife Trust, environmental records centre or a botanical group might already have information about the site’s wildlife. If not, organise your own survey – this is best done in the summertime. You may be able to get help from your local botanical society or other local experts. (Remember to get the landowner’s permission beforehand if necessary.)
Share any records of species found with your Local Records Centre and/or a national monitoring scheme. These will be verified and then taken into account by the local planning authority and others. (It’s always important to share your wildlife sightings, as this is vital to help us understand what’s happening to wildlife across the UK – and you never know when your data might help to protect those species that you’ve enjoyed spotting.)
Check the ecological assessment or environmental statement which should be available as part of the planning application or development plan. Assess it against your own information and ask questions such as: Did the field survey include lichens, mosses and fungi? Was it done at a time of year when any species present could be found (i.e. not in winter)?
Raise any concerns directly with the ecologist (if there is one) in the local planning authority, with your elected councillors, with your friends and neighbours and with the local media.
Many planning applications are approved with conditions to protect local wildlife – in this case, you can monitor whether these conditions are actually followed during and after construction of the development. In England, you can monitor whether Natural England’s Standing Advice on Protected Species is being followed.
Where you think a site is at risk from a change in its use – such as ploughing, drainage or chemical spraying on a wildflower meadow – then the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (Agriculture) regulations may apply. These regulations protect land that hasn’t been ploughed or had fertiliser added in the past 15 years and the landowner must apply for permission before changing its use.
– England– Scotland– Wales
– England: here and here– Scotland– Wales
Please send details of ‘live’ cases happening close to you by emailing conservation.enquiries@plantlife.org.uk
Plantlife can’t take action on all cases, but we’ll use this evidence to put more pressure on government and local authorities, and to raise awareness of what’s at stake.
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