Roof Gardens Plant Seeds of Recovery For Pollinating Insects

Gabriella Bennett  |  July 27 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Homeowners are being urged to create rooftop gardens to help reverse a devastating decline in the insects that pollinate plants.

The number of pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies has halved since the 1980s because of climate change and a loss of habitat.

The Scottish government’s new “pollinator strategy” encourages owners of flats and offices to create rooftop, balcony and window-ledge gardens to help the insects thrive.

Food crops rely on pollinating insects and research has shown that fewer bees and butterflies mean stable production of fruits and vegetables cannot be guaranteed.

Insects pollinate about a third of the world’s agricultural crops, and the cost of losing all UK pollinators has been estimated at up to £440 million per year. The economic value of honey bees and bumble bees to commercially-grown crops alone has been estimated at more than £200 million a year.

Pesticides, pollution, disease and climate change are all thought to be contributing factors in the decline of pollinating insects.

As well as targeting city dwellers, the government scheme will call for more flower-rich habitats to be restored around Scotland. New insect-friendly pesticides will also be developed, and more research will be done on climate change.

Dougal Philip, a judge at the Royal Horticultural Society’s shows at Chelsea and Hampton Court, also runs New Hopetoun Garden Centre in West Lothian with his wife Lesley Watson, a former presenter of The Beechgrove Garden. He said: “Lesley and I have been championing this cause for the past 20 years. We have been challenging myths of wildlife gardens, such as [that] they need to be a bit of a mess, they need to be in the country, and they have to have native plants. They can just as easily be in the suburbs or cities.”

Housebuilders are also contributing to environmental improvements by putting in rooftop gardens as part of new developments.

At the New Lanark world heritage site, a former 18th-century cotton spinning mill village, a 9,000 sq ft green space has been created on the roof of an A-listed mill building, around which seven restored townhouses will go on the market later this year.

Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish government’s environment secretary, called the country’s biodiversity one of its “key assets” and highlighted a commitment to ensuring it becomes a more “pollinator-friendly place”.

“Pressures such as pesticides, pollution, disease and climate change are threatening these life-giving insects, so we must act now to protect the pollinators and in turn safeguard our environment, our food and our health,” she said. Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the body responsible for preserving and promoting the country’s landscape, led the development of the new strategy with environmental and land management organisations.

Mike Cantlay, chairman of SNH, said there was evidence proving that Scotland’s native bees and insects were facing “tough times”.

“This strategy, a key part of the Scottish Biodiversity 2020 route map, sets out what needs to be done to ensure these bees and insects survive and thrive for generations to come,” he said.