Horticulture for Conservation

In recent years wildlife gardening has become increasingly popular, with horticulture organisations championing and showcasing it, gardening media covering it regularly, and every garden centre selling a wide range of products to help support wildlife in gardens. This is excellent and it will have a hugely positive impact for nature. What I’m keen to show in this blog, however, is that wildlife conservation organisations have been carrying out horticultural work for many years simply as part of ‘what they do’ to conserve and restore wildlife. The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, and a great many other wildlife conservation groups use horticultural techniques as part of their standard approach to protect and restore nature and I wanted to showcase this and the benefits that horticulture has for wildlife in day-to-day conservation practices.

Introduction:

For the first 20+ years of my horticulture career in nurseries and education I regarded horticulture as a environmentally-important vocation that benefits nature, but it wasn’t until I moved to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in 2004 as Head of School of Horticulture that I first encountered the important role that horticulture has in core conservation work. This was subsequently reinforced during my two years on St Helena in the South Atlantic on the island of St Helena, and now in my current role as Chief Executive of Manx Wildlife Trust (MWT) I am reminded almost daily of the crucial role that horticulture can have in relation to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

The IOM is the only whole nation UNESCO Biosphere in the world, and MWT’s work spanning the marine and terrestrial environments aims to create more places for nature and at the same time ensure we maximise nature as a tool to benefit people (e.g. climate change mitigation, and health and wellbeing) across the Island. A key goal for MWT and all The Wildlife Trusts is to deliver ‘30 by 30’ (30% of land and sea to be managed for nature by 2030). We aim to achieve this biodiversity gain in different ways – several of which require horticulture input.

It is interesting for me, having started my career in ‘traditional horticulture’, to now be working in the conservation sector. People (including my mum!) asked how I felt about “moving away from horticulture?” My response has always been that in my mind I’ve never left horticulture. I don’t feel I changed careers, rather, I’ve simply broadened it and horticulture is fundamentally about nature.

It does once again prompt the question of ‘What is horticulture?’ For example, when does nature reserve maintenance become horticulture? Is creating and maintaining a wildflower meadow horticulture? There is undoubtedly a grey area, but for me horticulture is simply the manipulation of plants to grow in a certain way, whatever the purpose or aim. I’m therefore in no doubt that much of the conservation work undertaken by MWT is indeed horticulture, and this blog highlights a range of the techniques we use.

Nature Reserves:

The core of our MWT conservation work is maintaining our nature reserves, led by our Reserves Manager, Tricia Sayle, and a fantastic team of volunteers (our Midweek Muckers) who undertake a range of tasks throughout the year. Much of the maintenance they do is ‘manipulation of plants’, including pruning, hedge cutting, grass cutting, and tree planting.

MWT have a diverse range of nature reserves, although the ultimate highlight are the wildflower meadows in the north of the IOM, in and around the Ballaugh Curragh ASSI and RAMSAR site (an international status awarded for their conservation importance as a wetland area)1. Our orchid meadows, including at our flagship MWT Close Sartfield Nature Reserve, are some of the best in the British Isles. Close Sartfield was created from degraded farmland pasture, through hard work, good management, scrub clearance, grazing, hay cutting, and the employment of the green hay technique to sow seeds on one of the meadows.

I had not encountered the use of green hay until I came to MWT. It involves the cutting of hay from an existing wildflower meadow after the flowers and seeds have formed, but not yet been dispersed. The green hay is then taken to a new piece of land, rolled out and allowed to dry and shed the seeds, thereby adding significantly to the seedbank. This can certainly be regarded as horticulture and it certainly contributed to MWT’s success at Close Sartfield. In 2022 we used the green hay technique once again, at Billown Quarry – a site owned by Colas Ltd., where we are working with them to create a new nature reserve. I am looking forward to seeing what plants germinate this coming year.

Agri-environment:

In April 2021 the IOM Government launched an Agri-environment Scheme (AES) and MWT were appointed as the delivery partner. Agriculture covers 75% of IOM land, and working pragmatically with Manx farmers is now our highest priority in terms of conserving and restoring biodiversity across this huge area of the Island. Our role is to give on-farm advice and assist farmers to maximise the scheme, encouraging more nature-friendly farming, and ensuring maximum gains for wildlife. The bulk of Manx agriculture is livestock and arable, though there is some horticultural vegetable production and protected cropping, including one livestock producer at Poyll Vaaish in the south who also grows a field of vegetables for on-farm and market sales.

The vegetables at Poyll Vaaish could not be regarded as pristine horticultural crop production, however, this small field became a magnet for farmland birds (and birders!) last winter. They flock there to feed on the weed seeds and take advantage of the cover provided by the end of season vegetables. In one observation session in December 2022 our AES Officer, David Bellamy, counted a tremendous number of birds, including significant numbers of important IUCN red-listed birds: Twite, Linnet, Meadow Pipit, Skylark, and crucially two Tree Sparrows, which are almost extinct in the IOM. Under the AES funding this less-intensively managed vegetable field habitat is being sustained, with additional AES funding providing bird feeders and millet to feed the birds here and at other sites across the Island. MWT have now set-up a Manx Farmlands Bird Group, appointed our first Farmland Birds Office (Rob Fisher), and our ambition is for the AES to help ensure the long-term survival of the Tree Sparrow and other IOM farmland birds.

Tree Planting:

There is much proposed tree planting being discussed in the IOM, and MWT aim to ensure that we plant the right tree in the right place throughout all our projects and partnerships. We are building an excellent working relationship with the IOM Woodland Trust who, with the support of a dedicated band of regular committed volunteers, are leading the way in planting the trees that the IOM needs. The AES and our IOM Woodlands Grant Scheme have stimulated more tree planting, including a flagship project at Smeale Farm where we were joined by our DEFA Minister Clare Barber for the initial planting weekend.

There’s a great opportunity now due to the rise of Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and the need and drive for corporate businesses to become Net Zero in their carbon footprint. The most exciting aspect for the IOM in the rise of ESG within corporates is the intensified focus upon on-island solutions, making it increasingly attractive for IOM-based businesses to fund tree planting (and other biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions) on the Island.

The Wildlife Trusts (TWT) have signed a contract with Aviva who, as part of their Net Zero 2040 ambition, are donating £38m to TWT to create more temperate rainforest across the British Isles. To our delight MWT are one of the first Wildlife Trusts to benefit, with Aviva funding having just enabled us to purchase of 105 acres of IOM land at Creg y Cowin that we will restore in partnership with the IOM Woodland Trust, as a broadleaf temperate rainforest. Agriculture will remain, and our aim is to create an example of agroforestry, that can inspire others to recreate the same across the IOM in appropriate places. Working with the IOM Woodland Trust, we will plant c.30,000 trees over the next five years, and once the trees are established the sheep and hopefully cattle will come back onto the land. This will hopefully be a landmark project for MWT and the IOM and core to this will be tree planting and establishment, aka, horticulture!

A key recent step forward in our ambition for trees in the IOM is that MWT have recently published an agreed IOM Native Tree List. When I arrived in the IOM I found that there were four different IOM Native Tree Lists across various organisations. There wasn’t much variation, and each list was justifiable, but I was keen to agree an Island-wide consensus. We now have an agreed IOM list that can be viewed on the MWT website. MWT are not advocating that only native trees are planted, but fundamentally, when ‘native trees’ are planted we will now be completely clear what that means.

Like the rest of the British Isles, the IOM has been negatively impacted by Ash Dieback disease and consequently the Island’s tree landscape is changing. One of MWT’s Action for Wildlife projects at our MWT Hairpin Woodland Park involves selecting and bulking up Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) trees showing strong resistance from a large stand of trees. One of the approaches we promote is the bench grafting of scion material from (apparently) resistant taxa onto young seedlings. I undertook the first successful ash grafting in 2022 as part of a workshop I delivered for the Manx Plant & Garden Conservation Society, and we are now looking to set-up a collaboration with the largest nursery stock grower in the IOM, Watsons Nurseries, who have offered to help with future grafting.

Peat:

Alongside trees, there is great interest in peat conservation and restoration both for biodiversity and as a Nature-based Solution (N-bS) to sequester carbon and alleviate flood risk. I vividly recall, as a horticultural student, going to a meeting of nursery stock growers in Worcestershire over 30 years ago, when the Chairman of a large local grower was bemoaning The National Trust for wanting peat-free container grown plants and stating that ‘growing peat free would never be a commercial option’. Thankfully much has changed over the years since and although horticulture is not completely peat-free, the end is nigh. Certainly, all MWT’s horticultural work is peat-free, and this is becoming the accepted IOM norm.

The IOM has a significant area of peatland that used to be cut for fuel. Cutting has now ceased completely and the Island is pursuing a restoration programme with MWT leading the way, through our Conservation Officer Sarah Hickey. Sarah, with her team of volunteers, has undertaken a baseline survey to determine how much upland peat we have (area and depth) and she is working closely with the IOM Government, Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) to commence peat restoration work. This includes trial planting in 2022 of sphagnum moss plugs into areas of peat that have been reshaped, in order to reduce further carbon loss, create an active peat bog, and ultimately regenerate the carbon sequestration process. If this trial works, this is something we could look to increase.

Seagrass:

The IOM has areas of Seagrass (Zostera marina) growing in sheltered sites along our East coast. Seagrass is the only true plant found under the sea and is a crucially important habitat for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. MWT are a key partner in the DEFA Blue Carbon Project, with our role focused predominantly on surveying and potentially restoring seagrass. In 2022 MWT undertook the IOM’s first seagrass plant transplantation trial from a seagrass bed at Langness, to a site in Port Erin Bay, that a historic map had shown to have previously been a seagrass location.

We have established a Manx Eelgrass Group (Eelgrass is the name given to Zostera spp. of Seagrass), with funding from KPMG, with the aim of completing the seagrass survey, deciding the number of required plants, and then producing and planting them. An important next stage is to engage with more established seagrass projects around the UK to learn from them. I have been involved in the translocation and production of plants above water for many years, but this is the first time I’ve managed to completely combine horticulture with my passion for scuba diving. Delightful!

Community Wildlife Gardening:

MWT are working to inspire and enable more community gardening in the IOM. In 2021 we launched our Certificate in Wildlife Gardening course, based on a similar format to the certificate courses I created at RBGE. The course equips people with the key knowledge they need, inspires them to do more, and creates nature-friendly gardening champions within the Island community. The course is proving to be a success, with visits to already established wildlife gardens and plenty of opportunity for students to get their hands dirty. There is also now interest in rolling this course out to other Wildlife Trusts.

Increasing wildlife-friendly planting is another aim and our MWT Northern Volunteers organise a popular annual IOM Gardeners Fair, where people purchase locally raised plants, grown in a wildlife friendly way. We also have an annual weekend where our MWT members open up their wildlife friendly gardens. Sowing seeds to create patches of flowers that attract lots of insects as well as looking great is a popular approach. Unfortunately, you can’t source large quantities of IOM provenance wildflower seeds, therefore every year people in the IOM buy and sow a great many packets of UK sourced wildflower seeds across the Island.

We are keen to reduce this and MWT are now working pragmatically with partners to develop a Manx Polli-nature Seed Mix, that we will promote for people to use in their gardens and urban environment. Key partners include Douglas Borough Council, Milntown Gardens (the IOM’s only RHS Partner Garden) and Manx National Heritage (MNH), whose Head Gardener and CIH member, Phillip Payne, has led the development of pollinator seed mixes at Rushen Abbey. The partners have worked together to produce a mixture of annuals and perennials to provide an evolving seed mix over a few years. We are going to test the mix in locations across the IOM in 2023, including at Milntown. Once tested, we aim to make this Manx Polli-nature Mix available more widely, including to schools and community groups. The aim is for this to encourage more engagement and citizen science about the plants and the invertebrates that enjoy them.

The monitoring of the seed trial at Milntown Gardens will be carried out by our new joint Milntown and MWT Wildlife Gardening Group. This was launched in March 2023 and is now meeting every Tuesday to carry out horticultural tasks in the fruit and vegetable garden at Milntown. Coordinated by Hannah our Community Ranger (funded by Lloyds Bank International), the group is growing in a wildlife friendly way, adding in interventions to benefit wildlife, and through showcasing these techniques, hopefully they will inspire many Milntown visitors to do the same in their own gardens.

We are keen to include the combined area of private gardens and urban environment managed for wildlife into the total area in our IOM NRN. The IOM Government has an excellent on-line Island Environment map (www.gov.im/maps/) with several layers including MWT nature reserves, ASSIs, and Wildlife Sites. Working with them we have created an app that will allow individuals and community groups to add their own small areas of wildlife gardening into a new layer on the map. Ultimately, we hope this will inspire far more people to help the IOM achieve 30 by 30.

An important MWT target is to engage with more people who live and work in Douglas – and who comprise the largest proportion of the IOM population. Douglas Borough Council have been implementing wildlife-friendly horticulture for years, including annual pollinator patches to replace areas of amenity turf and roadside verges. MWT are now developing a project with their housing team to enable community gardening close to areas of social housing in Douglas.

IOM-based Horticulturists:

There’s a great movement towards conservation and the environment in the IOM, and I hope I’ve shown that horticulture is contributing in many ways to the conservation work of MWT, but with potential for far more. We’re keen to build the culture of conservation horticulture and build a network of horticulturists who are keen to drive this. I have connected with a few professional horticulturists in the IOM, and we now meet regularly to visit horticultural sites and network. This group is already stimulating excellent knowledge-sharing and new joint initiatives (e.g. the Manx Polli-nature Seed Mix). IOM may be a relatively small island in the Irish Sea, however, the ambition is to raise the profile of horticulture in the IOM, showcase the collective contribution to the Island Biosphere, and hopefully be a model for others, particularly other small islands, to follow.

Note: A redacted version of this blog piece was published as an article ‘Horticulture for Conservation in the Isle of Man’ in The Horticulturist magazine (the journal of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture), Spring 2023.