The University of Roehampton is known as the ‘Green Campus’ with many wildlife species calling the grounds their home. Now Southlands College is proud to play its part in boosting that local biodiversity further by simply not mowing the grass. This creates new meadow habitat that will improve soil nutrition, allowing insects to flourish, which then attracts birds and mammals such as hedgehogs and foxes.
Southlands Quad is the central point of this project – half the Quad has now not been mown as a model to see the impact this has. Wildflowers such as bluebells and daisies are also appearing around other areas of the college where the grass has been left to itself – so if you are on campus keep a look out to see what you can find! Nature has never needed help more than it does now; since 1930 a huge 97% of wildflower meadows in the UK have been lost. Creating new space for this in our college and university community is one small step we can make to highlight this issue.
This video was produced by Southland’s Community College Leaders explaining the project further.