We hope you are enjoying the height of Summer, the scented blooms in the garden, and lazy days spotting butterflies and listening to the buzz of the bees. It’s definitely time for some Summer picnics. Why not plan one in one of the local parks or other green spaces?
When was the last time you got up really close to a ladybird, listened to the grasshoppers, or made a daisy chain in the grass?
If you plan a beach picnic, why not head to Tidemills and look out for some of the colourful plants that thrive among the shingle. Look out for Yellow horned poppies, Sea kale, Biting stonecrop, Vipers bugloss, Valerian and the wildlife that visit them.
Yellow Horned Poppy
We haven’t been letting the grass grow under our feet, but have been out talking to the community in all sorts of places including school fetes and outside supermarkets. If you would like us to come to your event and talk to people about bringing nature back to Seaford, do get in touch.
We were delighted to be invited to St Leonard’s churchyard and given the chance to talk to people about the inspiring project to bring bees, butterflies and other wildlife back to the churchyard, with mowing regimes that allow some of our most wonderful wild flowers to flourish.
In June we met with Alice from Buglife and learnt more about insects and about improving habitats for them. Bees and other insects don’t just need flowers for pollen and nectar, but also nesting and hibernation spaces – for example some need holes in the ground, others need hollow tubes like hollow stems or cavities in trees. We plan to improve these habitats in some of the local green spaces, for example maybe putting in insect hotels. If you would like to help with this, do get in touch.
Ladybird
We must confess we love “weeds”. A weed is only a flower in the wrong place, and sometimes wild flowers pop up in the most unlikely spots. Spotted recently – a stunning Evening Primrose, towering out of a tiny crack in a residential street, tiny ivy-leaved toadflax clinging beautifully to many walls, poppies along street corners, tumbling black medick round the base of sign to Eastbourne and a stunning storksbill in the gravel at the old hotel above Splash Point.
Evening Primrose, growing in the pavement edge
This is why so many of our members, and members of the public have been so horrified that ESCC are continuing to spray road and pavement edges in order to clear these “weeds”. Some areas clearly do need to be clear of vegetation for public safety but at what price?
OTV are concerned to learn that glyphosate is being used by ESCC. This is a chemical which scientists warn has potential to damage ecosystems by disrupting natural food chains and plant pollination. We have been talking to our local town and county councillors, who share our concerns, and are working to encourage ESCC to move away from this practice as soon as possible. Anyone who shares our concerns is requested to email customer@eastsussexhighways.com
Hope to see you out and about soon.
https://www.seafuture.org/on-the-verge/
Many thanks to Seaford Scene for publishing this article in August 2022. The whole article can be found here