May is the ‘Maai not’ month, in which, among other things, Landscape Management Drenthe evokes to leave the lawn mower a little longer. Together with the voluntary ‘roadside scouts’, verges along Drenthe roads are detected into typical Drentse Flora and Fauna.
Drenthe verges are characterized by the poor character, Jurre Brouwer of Landscape Management Drenthe explains. “You can all come across different flowers and plants in a poor roadside that love a poor soil.”
“Here we see a flower with all small hairs on the leaves. That is a very nice feature for the mouse ear,” says Brouwer while he is in a roadside right outside others. “You can also see some insects on it. This is a kind that is not very common nationwide, but in Drenthe it is doing very well.”
In recent years it has become a trend to mow less grass, also on municipal land. “They are increasingly leaving a piece occasionally. First of all, that is very nice for the critters hidden in the vegetation. But it is also good for the flowers that can easily flourish. In this way they can spread their seeds to other flowers on the roadside.”
To capture the versatility of the Drenthe roadside, there are so -called roadside scouts in life groups. Brouwer: “These are volunteer groups, supported by Landscape Management Drenthe, who make an inventory of the verges. They walk a roadside and see what plants are valuable to insects.” With this they help the municipality to see which plants are growing in the verges and what value it has for insects.
The roadside scouts run with a search card with images of flowers and plants. They note what they have encountered and link it back to the municipality. The same municipalities also organize meetings for potential new roadside scouts.
For the rear or front garden, Brouwer also advises to skip pieces of grass occasionally when you are mowing. “If you have a piece somewhere in your lawn with beautiful flowers, but just around it. Then you immediately have the bees happy and you get more color in the lawn.”