Last September, the wildlife charity Plantlife produced new guidelines for transforming the management of the UK’s roadsides that incorporate some of Nicholson and Sterling’s practices. But road verges have become an unlikely source of hope.

Industrialised use of nitrogen fertilisers and poor land management have diminished the crucial wildlife habitat by 97% since the 1930s.

Wildflower meadows, ancient British ecosystems that are crucial for wildlife, thrived for centuries with the help of traditional farming methods and livestock husbandry, but have largely vanished in the post-war era. “For the last 40 years we’ve been doing entirely the wrong thing,” says Sterling, impatient with the possibilities for roadsides across the UK and beyond. London boroughs, councils from across the country and European governments are paying attention. The annual budget for highway verge management dropped from nearly £1m to £650k in five years under the cut and collect, low fertility approach. The cost savings of managing roadsides this way are equally stunning for the council’s accounting department. Magenta pyramidal orchids linger outside a branch of Tesco. Yarrow and yellow flashes of lady’s bedstraw punctuate roadsides and roundabouts throughout summer. The before and after photos of otherwise ordinary roadsides across Dorset show the dramatic effects of Nicholson and Sterling’s maintenance regime, as suffocated seed banks have been allowed to spring back into life. The cut and collect method breaks the cycle. Over time, the resulting mulch increases the fertility of the soil, meaning the grass grows with increasing vigour and needs to be cut more frequently. Grass cuttings are almost always left where they fall along the thousands of miles of road verges that are maintained by law in the UK. Wildflowers on roadsides are a haven for butterflies and insects. In more fertile systems, a few species dominate and they swamp and smother everything else.” That’s not how it works in the natural system. At first that seems a little counterintuitive because you imagine the more you pour into a soil, the more plants that can grow. “As fertility declines in a soil, biodiversity increases. “It will not fail,” says Sterling, who, as programme manager for charity Butterfly Conservation’s building sites for butterflies project, has taken his roadside revolution around the country to any local authority that will listen. The process is simple: cut infrequently, ideally, just twice a year in spring and then late summer once plants have bloomed and seeded remove the clippings to gradually reduce the fertility of the soil and prevent a buildup of mulch repeat, wait, and enjoy the resurgent wildlife and flowers. In Sandford, Wareham, wildflowers are part of an initiative to provide an attractive habitat for butterflies and insects, while helping to cut the costs of roadside mowing.

Feral flowers