Wildflower planting scheme
In 2013, Rotherham Council commissioned Pictorial Meadows Ltd to install an eight mile long "River of Flowers" on the central reservations of the town’s main ring road using their wildflower seed mixes.
The Council’s new planting scheme and management of these areas benefits:
- Rotherham’s wildlife
- Supports the delivery of the Rotherham Biodiversity Action Plan
- Reduces the level of maintenance required.
This meadow-type habitat of native wildflowers and bulbs with the addition of selected non-native flower species provides nectar, flowers and seeds and food sources for many insects, birds and even some mammals.
Pictorial Meadows delivered much of the planting at the Olympic Village in London for the 2012 Games.
The seeds have been cultivated with locally-grown and blended meadow seed from the restored farm at Sheffield Manor Lodge.
Flower species include the Red Orache, Fairy Toadflax, various poppies including the Californian Poppy, cornflowers, and corn marigolds. The naturalised bulb planted areas included alliums.
They are a mix of annuals, which have a long flowering season achieved by using a successional approach as well as low growing early flowers which bloom against the fresh foliage of the later-flowering species. A proportion of later-flowering species grow tall hiding the remains of the earlier species.
The scheme has been a real success, as well as being good news for the environment, creating aesthetically pleasing highways and reducing the level of maintenance required, it has helped to save the council approximately £23,000 for each two year cycle.
The Council received over 250 emails and letters of praise, in the year following the first germination in July 2013 and continues to receive praise from local residents and from visitors from all over the Country.