Help create a wildflower spectacular

Work to transform North Cross roundabout into a wildflower haven continues with a mass seed sowing session.

Last week parts of the grassed areas were cleared, leaving the city centre site looking more like a ploughed field.

Today (Wednesday 8 April), people of all ages are being invited to come and help sow wildflower seed by hand. Starting at 10.30am people can just turn up at the site and join Plymouth Environmental Action to help create a wildflower spectacular.

Cabinet Member for the Environment, Councillor Brian Vincent said: “Planting wildflowers right in the heart of the city is a fantastic way of making sure visitors have a stunning welcome as they come into Plymouth. We are also looking after the pollinators such as bees which have experienced worrying decline across the globe. We are doing our bit!”

Local community interest company, Fotonow, will be on hand to document the transformation process and will produce a short video for release in summer.

Native wildflowers including cornflower, corn marigold, poppy, ox-eye daisy, red campion and white campion will be sown and will develop into a stunning array of colour to welcome visitors to the city.

The wildflowers will also encourage native pollinators to thrive and this site will be the latest in a long list of wildflower sites across the city. Young people will be involved in bug hunt events with the likes of Buglife supporting the project.

Plymouth’s City to Sea project was named as a runner-up for the Grow Wild England flagship site, after a four-week voting campaign that saw nearly 65,000 votes cast in 2014.

Led by Plymouth City Council, the City to Sea project aimed to reinvigorate the city centre with a striking kilometre-long wild flower corridor and over 12,500 votes were cast in support of the vision. Plymouth has received a £6,000 Grow Wild award to develop its idea.

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