Wildflowers brighten up roadside along A35 near Dorchester
National Highways has sown the flowers to increase biodiversity
The roadside along the A35 near Dorchester is looking a little brighter, after National Highways planted wildflowers there.
They've gone in at the Monkey's Jump roundabout and the Max Gate junction.
It's in an effort to improve biodiversity and reduce maintenance costs.
The project follows recent drainage improvement schemes there - sowing wildflowers seeds, instead of bringing in topsoil and turfing the verges.
National Highways’ Environmental Advisor Ben Hewlett said:
“This is a great example of how we are moving away from simply minimising the impact of our work on the environmental impacts towards actually improving the environment through our work.
“We now have a policy to introduce low nutrient soils and wildflower verges as part of our major projects programme and working with groups such as Natural England and Butterfly Conservation, it’s good to see this spreading into our regional maintenance and improvement work.
“The seeds have now germinated alongside the A35, a wildflower grassland is beginning to form and this will continue to evolve over the coming years – basically it means less money spent, less in maintenance costs and more biodiversity.
“The increase in wildflowers will not only have wider biodiversity benefits and provide some impressive visual displays, but it will also help to connect people with nature and improve the wellbeing of millions of people using our roads every day.”
Wildflowers we can now see along the A35 includes Horseshoe and Kidney Vetch, Bee Orchids, Cowslip and Oxeye Daisy.
They've been chosen as they're both 'visually appealing', but are also important in 'supporting pollinators and butterfly populations'.
Clare Warburton, Natural England's Green Infrastructure Principal Advisor, said:
“We welcome this step change in the way road verges are designed and managed, and this could make a significant contribution to recovering nature on our verges.
“Low nutrient verges can help to reduce the likelihood of invasive species like creeping thistle, and increase native species we love to see, like oxeye daisy and bird’s-foot trefoil and even rarer flowers, such as orchids, as well as being great for bees and pollinators.”