Yellow rattle is one of the key plants in wildflower areas – as well as providing food for pollinating insects, it weakens grasses allowing flowers to thrive.
As part of Buglife’s B-Lines project we collected seed from Crymlyn Burrows SSSI earlier this summer, and having sorted it and dried it, it is now time to sow it in the wildflower banks and verges of the Bay Campus. It isn’t quite as simple as throwing some seed around – we will prepare the areas by raking and scraping back patches of existing vegetation before scattering the seed and treading it in. The autumn rain and winter cold will then prime the seed to germinate in the spring.
We will be meeting at the mounds next to the MUGA pitches behind the School of Management at 2pm and as well as planting these areas, will walk to other wildflower areas on campus next to the main entrances and Engineering East to give the flowers a boost with more yellow rattle seed.
