Herefordshire Wildlife Trust are working with Herefordshire Council, Balfour Beatty Living Places, Herefordshire Wildlife Trust and several other wildlife organisations. They want to see a change in verge management across the county and want to protect the best verges by listing them as Roadside Verge Nature Reserves (RVNRs) and managing them for biodiversity.
Road verge flora is deteriorating in many parts of the UK – 87 of the verge species are facing possible extinction – including favourites like harebell, field scabious and ragged robin. The decline is caused by the way we cut and manage verge habitat and the increasing fertility of roadside soils. Cutting begins in the spring and is repeated in the summer so that few plants have a chance to set seed before the mowers arrive. Summer flowering plants, many of which typify our beautiful hay meadows, are disappearing from our verges.
The result of this mowing regime and the practice of leaving the cut vegetation to rot down in situ, has caused a decline in roadside species and an increase in weed species such as nettles, cow parsley and hogweed. This is bad news for wildflower numbers and diversity. It is also bad for populations of bees, beetles and butterflies that rely on these plants for food, and for the birds that eat these invertebrates.
More details – https://www.herefordshirewt.org/projects-0/verging-wild
