Come along on a fine early spring day in the Eastern Florida Panhandle searching for likely roads with ample right-of-ways, remnant wildflowers and few weeds.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge where we amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns. We invite you to share in the comments what you see in your own part of the world.
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March 2019
Gadsden County recently joined the Florida Panhandle Wildflower Alliance after the state leader found a local rep not named me. The other day 4 of us, one a botanist from the county extension, one retired from Florida Natural Areas Inventory, took off looking for likely roads. These will be flagged as no-mow zones with yearly or occasional mowing only with our approval. The county road dept. has agreed and thinks the idea of mowing less is great.
The county will continue to mow the immediate shoulder down to the ditch. We call this the safety strip; makes them feel good. Mowing the banks past the ditch, sometimes under utility lines, is scheduled by each PWA chapter given seed production, dormancy and likelihood of mowing spreading the seeds for us.
We are not asking for planted wildflower zones like you see on the interstate in places. Here we say Stop mowing and see what comes up — we don’t like it, we cut it. Pretty simple huh?
Stop Mowing So Much!
Save Money!
See Nature's Beauty!
Feed the Pollinators!
OK, hope you enjoyed this trip across Gadsden county. Every time we stopped we were amazed by the number of small native wildflowers — invisible at 40-60 MPH. Hopefully with less moving some plants will recover to their more normal heights while many like the Sundew or Rabbitbells are already below the mowers but heavy equipment does disturb them. It’s so easy for road departments to do this, reduce moving, save money.
Thanks for stopping by, see ya in the comments…
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