Sir, – I refer to the recent article by Michael Viney "Botanists not wild about Trinity College's wildflower 'meadow'" (August 21st), concerning the newly established wildflower meadow at the entrance to Trinity College Dublin.
I personally was delighted to see the college take the initiative and convert what was a formal lawn into a meadow. Within our cities there are many amenity grassland areas which would benefit from such an imaginative approach.
This meadow was developed by removing the existing turf and replacing it with one rich in Irish wildflowers. I assume the seed for this was sourced in Ireland as there are people in the country supplying wildflower seed which is locally sourced.
I understand that the project was greatly supported by the public. It was a brave move by the college to replace the formal lawn as it is not the type of proposal one would automatically assume would attract wide public support.
The creation of this type of meadow in an urban areas is, as the article states, a new type of horticultural gardening. With the decline in biodiversity in our countryside, it is hardly surprising that meadow gardening has become fashionable. There is a delight to be had in seeing a colourful meadow teeming with insect life.
Conserving natural habitats and developing wildflower meadows are not mutually exclusive. One does not have to stop one to allow the other to go ahead and one should not be seen as a substitute for the other. I have seen packets of the wildflower seed mixtures referred to in the article in garden centres around the country. They mainly contain the seeds of colourful annual plants that are likely to attract insects. Most of them will not create a meadow but rather an annual display of plants that will need to be resown from year to year. They will not create a meadow as there is no permanence to what is being created. They are attractive and valid in their own right for anyone who wants to create a colourful display in their garden but have a limited role in creating biodiversity.
It seems to me that urban green spaces have a role to play in compensating for the loss of habitats in rural Ireland and that this possibility should be explored and encouraged. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DEVOY,
Ranelagh, Dublin 6.