ADUR AND WORTHING ARE TRULY 'WHERE THE WILD FLOWERS GROW' 

Adur and Worthing are truly ‘Where The Wild Flowers Grow’ this spring as the Councils announce a record programme to splash our communities with colour -- including World War One memorial displays rich with poppies.

District and Borough have a deserved reputation for the number of wildflower seed sowings on their parks, green spaces, churchyards and even roadside verges which burst into fragrant explosions of colour in the summer.

And this year’s sowings, called Where The Wild Flowers Grow, starts next week (April 30) when the community and many local area Friends Of groups are invited to help the park rangers and grounds maintenance teams sow the seeds. As well as planting the traditional flanders poppies, the parks department will be sowing seed mixes that provide rich nectar sources for our pollinating bees and other insects whilst producing vibrant colour displays.  Seeds include borage,cosmos, cornflower, flax, marigold, and many others.

On selected sites, residents will be able to help with the whole process, from planting the seed, to tending and weeding the sites as the flowers begin to grow.

For a list of the locations and times of the community sowing please follow this link wildflower web page .

In total there are 27 sites across the District and Borough which will be included for sowing some of which will be exclusively for poppies to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.

Adur & Worthing Councils’ Parks and Open Spaces Manager Dan Ross said, ‘It’s fantastic to see the results of the sowing when the sites burst into colour. We really want to see as many people as possible coming out to help and then taking enjoyment in watching these pieces of land completely transform.

‘This year we thought it would be a fitting tribute to have some exclusive poppy sowings to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the World War One. We have had a great response to similar displays over the past three years, and I think it will be particularly poignant to see those areas grow in even more sites this year across our District and Borough.’

Wildflower meadows offer a diverse, and typically exceptionally attractive, habitat for the pleasure of young and old alike. The twentieth century saw a sharp decrease in the variety of wildflowers in the UK countryside,  due to changes in agricultural policy and practice, particularly increased field drainage and herbicide use.

But over the past two decades, renewed interest in wildflower habitats has grown with concerns for biodiversity protection and concern for the stability of our fragile bee population. In our parks, we are aiming to raise awareness of the importance of wildflowers, pollinating insects, and provide space for wildlife within our urban green spaces.

Some of the benefits of this are:

·        Plant diversity attracts insects and other invertebrates (including butterflies, bees birds and mammals

·        Flowering species add a changing palate of colour to the urban environment throughout the seasons

·        Active involvement of the community in managing the site encourages ownership values to be fostered.

·        Even small plots of wildflower planting can change the feel of a setting, so that the creation of a wildflower meadow as part of an urban greenspace can bring a little piece of countryside into the town.

For an interactive map of the sites under the Where The Wild Flowers Grow programme go to link here  Map

In addition to the creation of new wildflower meadows, The Council manage a number of important native meadows in particularly on our Chalk Downland sites. Sites such as Honeysuckle Meadow in Worthing, Mill Hill Local Nature Reserve, in Shoreham or Lancing Ring Local Nature Reserve. On such sites, we are working closely with the Southdowns National Park Authority and local community groups, to promote an understanding of the importance of the Chalk landscape. For more information about Chalk Grassland and our work on these sites, please visit our web site of click on these links. Importance of chalk grassland in the Downs, Lancing Ring, Mill Hill