National Meadows Day - 5th July

#NationalMeadowsDay

 

The first Saturday in July is National Meadows Day - that's the 5th July in 2025.

Meadows matter.   They give sanctuary for wildlife and they lock up carbon.   And who doesn't love the sight of a meadow with wild flowers in it? 

So it is a very sad thought that 97% of British wildflower meadows have been eradicated since 1945.  They've been ploughed over, over-fertilised and destroyed for our building purposes.   This has terrible consequences for our bees and butterflies.  Nearly 1,400 species of insects rely on meadow plants to survive.   

National Meadows Day gives us all the chance to discover more about our meadows and grasslands and discover what we can do to help them. 

Plantlife is asking us all to please help meadows with one action

In 2025, Plantlife is calling on the government to protect irreplaceable meadows and they are asking for help from us all.  It is calling for irreplaceable meadows to be added to the Irreplaceable Habitats list. 

For irreplaceable habitat is very difficult to restore, create or replace (or it takes an extremely long time) after it has been destroyed.   There could be a number of reasons for this, such as age, uniqueness and species diversity, and its rarity.  It includes ancient woodland, ancient and veteran trees , blanket bog, coastal sandunes, lowland fens, medicaterranean saltmarsh scrub and spartina saltmarsh swards, as well as limestone pavements. As irreplaceable habitat, they should have more protection in planning policy, because they can't be harmed by development - unless the circumstances are exceptional.  With the UK Government proposing huge changes to planning policy with its Planning and Infrastructure Bill, habitats and wildlife are at risk of developers just bulldozing their way through some of our much loved habitats.  Plantlife want to see our beautiful meadows having extra protection. Find out more about it here and what people can do to help, including developers. 

Plantlife are asking us all to act and give meadows our support:



Please give meadows your support.   They need our help!

You could also look at the transformation a wildlife meadow makes in a year - all in 2 minutes!

Joel Ashton explains how to make your own mini-meadow at home.  Plantlife have some lovely wildflower seeds you can buy online - a great way to give your support!