
A quiet roadside revolution is boosting wildflowers - montalbano
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/14/on-the-verge-a-quiet-roadside-revolution-is-boosting-wildflowers-aoe
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jay-anderson
When we bought our house it had a lawn in the backyard. I never really liked
taking care of it. Last year I worked on getting rid of the bermuda grass in
my back yard. This year I put out some wild flower seeds and watched what came
up. I still worked on removing the plants I didn't want, but I let a lot of
the weeds come up. Most of the seeds I put out didn't take, but that's fine. I
got to know the natural plants that come up. Others look at it and see an
unkempt yard, but it makes me much happier than my lawn ever did. It's green,
it takes less water (zero) and if you watch closely there are more birds,
bees, lady bugs, and others than I ever saw with the lawn.

Stories like this one of a more careful management of land make me hopeful.
I'm working to get something better going with my little plot of land too.

~~~
WalterBright
I've thrown out wildflower seeds many times on my lawn, but nothing took root.
So I've been trying simply mowing it once a month to keep the blackberries and
scotch broom from taking over, and seeing what happens.

(Blackberries and scotch broom run amok if left alone, and the former creates
an impenetrable hedge taller than myself with a dead zone underneath,
everything else choked out. It takes repeated mowings over several years to
finally kill them.)

~~~
jschwartzi
If you’re removing Himalayan blackberries you have to dig the rhizome out.
It’s not enough to cut it down. Basically you take an adze or similar and cut
in where the shoots are coming out of the ground. Then pull up on the shoots
and a little ball will come up with them.

Here in Washington State the Himalayan blackberries are an invasive species
which grows all over the place. There are no natural predators here. If they
become established then they kill everything around them including some trees.
The only reliable way to remove them is by digging out the rhizome after
cutting them to the ground. It can take several years to completely eliminate
them from an area

~~~
WalterBright
If you keep mowing them, they eventually starve and die. They cannot live off
of the root ball forever. So far it looks like it takes two years for that to
happen. Every time they throw out shoots it consumes the root ball's food.
Cutting off the shoots before they can photosynthesize more food will do the
trick. It also helps to cut them down after they flower and before their
resources get sucked back into the root ball in the fall.

For scotch broom, they'll also grow back if you cut them off at ground level.
But I found if you cut them off right after they flower and start going to
seed, they don't grow back. Apparently they throw so many resources into the
flower they can't recover.

We also have a huge problem with english ivy, which looks nice but kills the
trees.

~~~
solstice
I've got nothing to add but I just wanted to remark that your description
sounds incredibly gruesome.

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montalbano
Here is a relevant video by the fantastic self-taught botanist _Crime Pays but
Botany Doesn 't_

PSA - Kill Your Lawn w/ Silphium terebinthinaceum

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9I2YwmV8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9I2YwmV8M)

(Also related HN discussion on another of his videos:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041193))

~~~
2sk21
I have to thank you for this link - one of the greatest channels I've ever
stumbled upon on YouTube!

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masonhensley
Texas has been doing something similar for a while, it's really pretty when
things are in bloom.

\- [https://www.wildflower.org/project/ecological-
roadsides](https://www.wildflower.org/project/ecological-roadsides)

\- [https://www.wildflower.org/plants-main](https://www.wildflower.org/plants-
main)

\- [https://texashighways.com/culture/people/a-runner-
reflects-o...](https://texashighways.com/culture/people/a-runner-reflects-on-
lady-bird-johnsons-legacy-and-the-companionship-of-nature/)

\-
[https://texashighways.com/wildflowers/](https://texashighways.com/wildflowers/)

~~~
devurand
Texas in the spring is wonderful. Everyone is out taking pictures in the
massive fields of bluebonnets and indian paintbrush. Of course, it can also
cause traffic issues as people pull over to do the photo op in the medians.

~~~
bnjms
Giant shoulders mean this usually happens by the highway without trouble.

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bjelkeman-again
Where we live ditches that don’t need the full capacity of an open ditch have
been filled with gravel and then perennial flowering plants have been seeded.
The place was absolut teeming with butterflies, bees and bumble bees.

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devb
New Jersey has had a trial program for several years now. In fact, you can buy
the seed mix that the Garden State Parkway uses.

[https://www.gspwildflowers.com/shop](https://www.gspwildflowers.com/shop)

~~~
2sk21
They must be doing the same thing along I-80 as well. For several years, I
have been seeing these patches of bright pink/purple flowers here in NJ and
been wondering about them as they looked too regular to be entirely natural. I
love them and they add some much needed color to the landscape.

~~~
devb
Yes! It's a statewide program. There's a specific jughandle at the 78/Turnpike
interchange that has a nice patch of flowers every summer. It's funny seeing
it amid all the industry and crud of the area.

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WalterBright
What a marvelous initiative. We should be doing this everywhere.

In a house where I used to live, I left as much as possible as meadow (because
I am lazy and too cheap to water it), cutting it only twice a year to reduce
the fire risk. Everybody else installed the golf course style lawns. I had the
best looking yard by a mile :-) and was very happy with it.

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CarVac
The NJ Turnpike has been planting lots of wildflowers, which make an
attractive subject for photography.

One cloverleaf near me had cosmos:

[https://flic.kr/s/aHsmG1mX94](https://flic.kr/s/aHsmG1mX94)

~~~
jfengel
Those are some very attractive photos, thank you.

Though for my own information, and forgive my ignorance... is that the kind of
pseudo-bokeh you get from a camera phone? Or was that you being very artistic?
Either way the shots are nicely composed.

~~~
CarVac
That's real bokeh from a 36×24mm sensor and either moderately fast apertures
or long focal lengths.

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JohnJamesRambo
I love this story. I don’t see why they need to reinvent the wheel with the
sucking machine and taking the clippings to an anaerobic digestion facility
though. A method for removing clippings and doing something useful with them
has been around for centuries, it is called baling hay.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Even better, farmers will sometimes come do it for free!

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hinkley
If anyone is so inclined, I would encourage you to do a web search for "how to
make seed bombs".

Essentially a ball of clay, seeds, and a small quantity of organic matter to
facilitate distribution of seeds and reduce bird predation.

Please, please research native species if you decide to go this route.

~~~
gbell12
Have you ever seen them work, or seen data on them? I've never had them work,
and they don't seem like they would either - bunch of seeds landing in a ball
together would lead to too much competition, right? That is, if they didn't
sprout while the ball initially dried.

~~~
hinkley
I think the temptation is to put too many seeds into the mix, creating the
problem you identified. When you broadcast seeds you want a certain number of
pounds per thousand square feet and instead you have a ball that will cover a
few square inches. You aren’t trying to fill an empty lot, you’re trying to
get a few self-seeding plants established.

I did some in a couple places where I no longer went, so I have no idea what
happened to them, and unfortunately the spot where they seemed to work got
turned into a building the very next year. I’m in areas with low clay content
in the soils so it’s difficult to source materials without buying them.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Minnesota actually has a formal program for this called Roadsides for
Wildlife:
[https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/roadsidesforwildlife/index.html](https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/roadsidesforwildlife/index.html)

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gbell12
How cool and uninituitive. I worry about prime butterfly habitat right next to
a road with high-speed radiator grills.

~~~
oska
My guess is that loss of individuals to vehicle strike is not important for
the overall population. What's important is the carrying capacity of the
habitat which, according to this article, has been significantly increased.

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kevin_thibedeau
> The Environment Agency (EA) did not renew the permit for Lincolnshire to
> continue the trial due to concerns about waste codes and regulations.

Never let a good idea get in the way of British traditions.

