Simon Perry from Wild Roseland on wild flower areas

Welcome to another episode of the Roseland Podcast

I’m Chloe, your host.

In today’s episode:

• I’m chatting with Simon Perry from Wild Roseland about wild flower gardens and meadows

If this is the first episode you’re listening to you can find and listen to the podcast at Roselandpodcast.com, on iTunes/Apple Podcast, on Spotify and all other podcast apps just search for “Roseland Podcast”.

At Roselandpodcast.com you’ll also find links to any resources we mention.

Interview time!

Time to find out about Wild Roseland’s wild flower areas, and how you can create your own.

INTERVIEW

Simon sent us in a TON of resources if you want to find out more about what we were chatting about, you can find them all in the shownotes at roselandpodcast.com

That includes details of how to get hold of a new book “Flora of Cornwall” which Simon describes as

“an excellent comprehensive book with Great intros to habitats etc and then details of where all species have been recorded. All from information collected by amateur botanists across Cornwall.”

The book isn’t widely available - not from Amazon or Waterstones, so we’ve included a link to the flyer with details of how you can order direct from the author. Old school!

It’s quite a big file - so be patient as it loads - see the flyer

Wild Flowers and Pollinators

As well as links to Wild Roseland ( www.wildroseland.org) to get involved and offer help with volunteer work parties there are a number of useful links if people are thinking about wild flower patches in their own gardens and encouraging pollinators....

• An excellent project happening now on butterflies... good so see what is visiting your garden now is Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count, another of those citizen science surveys. Big butterfly count Also a phone app to do the recording.
• Plantlife's 'every flower counts' project included 'No mow May' and 'Let it bloom June'! www.plantlife.org.uk/everyflowercounts/
• Cornwall AONB (which of course covers the Roseland) has an excellent project called WhealBuzzy. There are more than 190 species of bee in Cornwall with 120 being solitary species. The Cornish AONB is of national significance for its bee fauna. Opportunities to get involved. New educational pack good for schools etc. www.cornwall-aonb.gov.uk/wheal-buzzy
• Eden Project is now home to the National Wildflower Centre. Worth a visit to Eden to see their wild flowers anyway. Although currently working on bigger projects (the original NWC was based in Liverpool where they helped with greening urban spaces across the NW.) I suspect they may have had some involvement with Cornwall Council Highways wildflower edges on the A30 in recent years. They sell small packs of local sourced seed but I think would also offer advice and help with harvesting local seed if you had a larger wild patch .www.edenproject.com/eden-story/our-ethos/national-wildflower-centre
• Grow Wild is project... This was a covid project - it's no longer running, but people are still listening, so we're leaving it up for you