Islington in bloom

• IT’S uplifting to see so many wild flowers – sometimes dismissed as weeds – blooming in the grass on several Islington estates at the moment.

Weeds are just plants in the wrong place and while wildflower meadows are tricky to plant they happen naturally if you just stop mowing the grass for a few weeks in the spring.

I hope that the carpets of buttercups, daisies, dandelions, alkanet and herb-Robert, in bloom at the moment, are the result of a deliberate policy by estate managers and won’t all be strimmed in the next week or two.

Of course, some invasive plants need to be kept under control in places. However, mowing (and spraying) less often and leaving patches of long grass for pollinators and other wildlife is a really cheap and easy way to increase biodiversity in our
green space-deprived borough.

DOROTHY BOSWELL
Islington Environment Emergency Alliance