Wild Seed for native plant sanctuary
One of the ways to grow wildflowers in your garden is to collect local seed. I’ve already started in August as plants set seed but this will carry on through to winter.
Not only are fairly common wildflowers put under stress by our use of the land in Britain for farming, housing, roads and industry, but also, are many of the more unusual plants, some of which that I’m trying to propagate for my garden, such as: greater celandine; woolly thistle; bird vetch; gromwell, woody nightshade, kidney vetch and vipers bugloss. All found either in the village where I live in Wiltshire or within a few miles.
Why would I want to grow these plants in my garden though? Aren’t they best left in the countryside? That depends on who is managing the countryside. I see time after time that rare and unusual wildflowers are not being given a chance to proliferate due to those responsible for the management of land following maintenance schedules that are in discord with the needs of the wild plant and the wildlife that it supports. This matters because these plants all play their own special part in holding the balance of the natural world.
This works by way of a fascinating tussle between plants protecting themselves against attack from insects by means of unpalatable chemicals or physical deterrents / barriers. It takes thousands of years for these relationships to develop, leaving most herbivorous insects with only one or very few plants, usually in the same family or even genus, that they can eat. It’s a very delicate situation, and an ill thought out mow or strim, not only removes the wild host plant for that year and lessens its chances of growing another, but more often than not causes fatal harm to an extraordinary and vulnerable insect. This also ripples up the food chain. For the 97% of terrestrial birds that feed their young on insects every year during nesting, this is a very big deal. Not to mention the small mammals, reptiles and amphibians that eat them also. The irony here being, if the countryside isn’t a safe place for nature then perhaps our gardens are.
If though, you are thinking of doing a similar thing, please recognise that there is a great responsibility in gathering seeds from the wild and it is to be kept to the absolute minimum. There is a very fine balance to be made between gathering a small amount of seed to build up a ‘support bank’ of wild plants in our gardens and reducing wild plants' stock’s ability to reproduce. I would urge anybody to seek out specimens in local gardens to share seeds or cuttings before seed collecting from plants in the wild.
As far as the law is concerned don’t dig up a plant in the wild at all, only take part of the plant (pick flowers, collect seed or take cuttings) if you know that they are not in a SSSI; another protected site, on the Schedule 8 list of the Countryside Act 1981 or on the Red Data List. So express caution and restraint if in doubt.
Wild plants - best practice
Beyond the law there are some really sensible guidelines that in forager lore are taken as good rules of thumb to abide by.
Never harvest endangered, rare or threatened species
Never take plant material from a SSSI, nature reserve or other protected site
Take no more than 5% or one twentieth of the plant / seed, and or only from a plant in amongst a minimum of 20 plants / large patches of plants
For identification purposes take photographs rather than samples
Be careful not to damage other vegetation when gathering material
Take only the minimum amount required and must not be used for commercial gain
Always know the name and understand the characteristics of the plant that you are harvesting from.
See the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) Code of Conduct for good guidance.
