My painting, “Wildflowers not weeds” is a painting of UK wildflowers, the sort that are commonly found in verges and at the roadside. This painting is deliberate poke in the eye for what I call  the “Neat and Tidy Brigade” – councils and property owners who unnecessarily destroy wildflowers at the roadside.

I have illustrated just 15 species of the many that I saw one day in early June 2021 growing in the beautiful, wild uncut verges on the lane where I live in Oxfordshire.

Every single one of our wildflowers have a small but important part to play in a biodiverse ecosystem. They provide food for insect pollinators and therefore everything across the food web – birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertibrates – as well as habitat.

However, some people consider many species of wildflowers as ‘weeds’ and fail to see their importance and delicate loveliness. Really, there is no such thing as a weed – only the wrong thing growing in the wrong place as defined by humans who mostly belong to the Neat and Tidy Brigade.

Except to aid drivers’ visibility at road junctions, I very strongly believe all roadside verges should remain unmown. Together this would – at a stroke – create thousands of acres of biodiverse habitat. That nasty yellow stubble left behind by overzealous council verge trimming is offensive to my eyes. Verges should be left uncut until September by which time plants have had a chance to feed the insects and set seed. It would save councils so much time and money if they just left them be.