Plants for you
Want to know a bit more about the wildflowers you can encourage in your own garden? Check here throughout the year to learn about the plants in Broad Meadow and the positive impact they can have on us and other wildlife.
Cowslips and Native Primroses
(Primula veris and Primula vulgaris) provide vital nectar and pollen for pollinators in the spring. Primulas are easy to grow, do well in a variety of soils, in sun or shade.
They are an important food source for one of our earliest butterflies, the Brimstone, so look out for large bright yellow butterflies fluttering about from April.
Cuckooflower (Lady’s Smock)
(Cardamine pratensis) is a delicate annual that flowers in early spring and is thought to be named after the arrival of the first cuckoos in the UK. Cardamines are part of the Brassica family, are edible and are said to taste of mustard. Cuckooflowers can be confused with the common weed Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) until they are in flower.
Cuckooflowers are known for attracting Orange Tip butterflies, who lay their eggs under the petals (under the calyx or on the stalk). Sprinkle seed in sunny boggy/ damp garden areas, at the edges of ponds in the autumn and wait for the magic in spring.
Ragged Robin
(Silene flos-cuculi, Syn.Lychnis flos-cuculi) is a moisture loving perennial plant, flowering April-June, perfect for sunny damp/ boggy gardens. It’s an important food plant for the caterpillars of the Campion Moth and the Lychnis Moth who eat the seed heads, as well as, providing nectar for long-tongued bumblebees and butterflies.
Not only useful for wildlife, Ragged Robin can also be used to make soap, due to the high levels of saponins in it’s roots.
Hazel
(Corylus avellana) is a native tree that, although wind pollinated, supports a variety of insects in spring through releasing large quantities of pollen via catkins. In summer its leaves provide food for a number of moth and butterfly caterpillars.
In winter its nuts are a vital food source for small mammals including dormice, and birds such as Woodpeckers, Jays and Nuthatches. When coppiced, Hazel’s can provide important garden building material, perfect for bean poles, pea sticks, dead hedges and hurdles.
Lesser Celandine
(Ficaria verna) is an early flowering perennial of the buttercup family. It has a short lived growing season, usually appearing above ground in February before disappearing again in May to wait in tuberous form for spring to arrive again.
It is an important food source for emerging bumblebees, flies and beetles, and can be eaten by humans when cooked. It is thought to have been used historically to treat piles. No part of this plant is edible raw due to toxins that are broken down through the cooking processes.