Wilding or rewilding schemes

It’s alway been wild around me, the hedges go to the road, I can’t even think of a nearby grass verge. Hedge management is down to the relevant farmers, who chop them back three times a year so they don’t obscure the road. There are clippings left on the road afterwards, and we all regularly get flat tyres as a result, but I still count myself lucky.

Vision splays at junctions are also left to grow, so that, if turning out from a minor to amajor road, you cannot see oncoming traffic.

Our penny pinching council has decided to rewild grass verges alongside some of our pavements. Result: nettles and thistles growing right over the pavements. Since half of each pavement has been designated and marked for bikes only, only a couple of feet of pavement is actually left and now those couple of feet have been overgrown with weeds, thistles, and nettles. My grandson was stung all over his legs by the nettles as we walked past them. Pavement verges are not suitable for rewilding schemes in my opinion.

It's just a buzz word isn't it, in practice think it means leaving public spaces to grow /tangle rather than manicuring them. We have a very extensive scheme in the village where huge amounts of earth have been moved on a 12 acre site to create a sort of wetland with meandering streams & lakes. As we're low-lying moorland anyway & have an wildfowl reserve close by, it has a good chance of naturalising & becoming a wildfowl haven, rather than boggy pasture.It will probably need asmuch managingas the pasture did, though.

If management is necessary, it is not rewilding.

There is a lot of nonsense talked about rewilding. There has been little or no genuine wild landscape in England for a thousand years or more. Even much of our moorland is the result of Bronze Age agriculture that farmed the light soils and exhausted them. Our woodland, forests and hedgerow are all man mad.

'Rewilding' is just replacing one manage landscape with another managed landscape.

We have lots of re-wilding spaces on the park at the end of the garden. Generally I don't mind the look of it & it is managed here, albeit by volunteers. So I'm in favour, but I do worry that there are more rats about than there used to be. With all the scrub & wood piles & sawdust heaps just left, there're so many places for them, & in a suburban environment they're never short of food. It's not uncommon to come across a dead rat on our walks - 3 times last year. They were always there I know, just not in such numbers. I guess it proves it's good for wildlife.

I agree that rewilding isn’t just leaving the land to do what it wants - management is necessary.

BlueBelle

I agree we have a lovely upper promenade with big overgrown wild grass etc between it and the beach, it used to be kept very tidy and although I m all for rewilding it looks awful in the summer just the time holiday makers maybe around
Also our cemeteries are now left wild in the summer and you can barely see the graves between awful dried looking grass
I ve not seen any wild flowers or butterflies etc

Part of the churchyard where my parents are buried together was taken over as God’s Acre several years ago and was allowed to grow wild.

I was horrified and upset when I went to see the newly erected joint headstone in 2021. That whole area was thigh high in long grass, thistles and weeds which the stonemasons had had to wade through to install it. It looked awful. I discovered they had allowed that area to be rewilded too. I complained to the Vicar that all that area is for most recently deceased people and after spending a lot of money on headstones, people should be able to tend them without wading through long, wet grass.

It’s pennypinching and laziness in many cases.

I agree we have a lovely upper promenade with big overgrown wild grass etc between it and the beach, it used to be kept very tidy and although I m all for rewilding it looks awful in the summer just the time holiday makers maybe around
Also our cemeteries are now left wild in the summer and you can barely see the graves between awful dried looking grass
I ve not seen any wild flowers or butterflies etc

Neglected not rewarded

Oh the term re wilding. I do wonder if some councils view it as a cheap option
A wild environment does need some management
We bought out present home in 2014. The grounds had been rewarded
Couldn’t get down the drive. Fallen trees
Some of the ivy and brambles were trying to get through the windows
We didn’t know where the oil tank or static caravan was
Brambles were in abundance some must have been 12 foot high Couldn’t get to the apple trees to go with the blackberries
Locals told us of the lovely banks of snowdrops blue bell primroses daffodils wild strawberries. I could go on
You can imagine how disappointed we were when the brambles were cleared but nothing was there
Gradually over the following few years all the wild flowers returned
Yes it sometimes looks really wild as we are careful when things are none
Think you might call it managed wildness
Not neglected or abandoned

The council have done this with large areas where I live. They look stunning for a short period of time and then rather sad.. It doesn't sound necessary where you live.. perhaps start a debate on Nextdoor or Facebook and see what everyone thinks.

I'm totally in favour of rewilding but it does sound as if the piece of land in question would be better left as it is. It does sound as if you live in a lovely place Primrose53.