The colorful chaos of a wildflower meadow is a much 'greener' alternative to a perfectly manicured patch of grass, a team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge says.
Cultivating a lawn is a highly popular, centuries-old tradition in much of the Western world. Yet as great as these uniform blankets of green are for, say, playing sports, they do not foster the healthiest natural habitats.
To prove it, a team at King's College has broken a long-held tradition. In 2019, they stopped nearly half of the college's iconic Back Lawn from being mown for the first time since it was laid in 1772 and planted a wildflower meadow mix in the topsoil of this region.A sprinkling of poppies, cornflowers, and oxeye daisies later burst into life. According to new findings, the football field-sized patch of color now supports more than 3.
With the flowers, the bugs soon followed, and with them came their predators. Local bats now forage in the meadow three times as often, researchers say.plant ecologist Cicely Marshall from the University of Cambridge. To start, the meadow was only seeded with 33 species of plant. Already, it hosts at least 51 other species as well.Because gardens can store carbon over time, that saves a lot of potential emissions.
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