National Trust: Volunteers to plant 20,000 violets - to help boost small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly

The National Trust and a team of dedicated volunteers will paint the Shropshire Hills purple this spring - planting more that 20 thousand marsh violets to kelp a rare butterfly.

The planting effort, believed to be the largest of its kind in the UK, was funded by the Natural England Species Recovery Programme - part of its ‘Stepping Stones’ recovery project to connect up habitats across the landscape and create a sustainable home for the small pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly. Tiny marsh violets are the caterpillar’s favourite food, and the Trust hopes that more violets will attract more of the increasingly rare butterflies to the area.

Ecologists also hope that the wider recovery project will help create homes for three other important target species; willow tits, hazel dormice and otters. The willow tit is the UK’s most threatened resident bird, with its sharp decline is linked to the loss of wet woodland with plenty of rotting wood, while the hazel dormouse has declined by 51% since 2000.

Volunteers will be planting out the first ‘clumps’ of marsh violets this spring - in 1x1 metre squares - with the rest to follow in the autumn, creating 400 areas for the violets to thrive. The selected sites are close to where small pearl-bordered fritillaries have already been spotted, but where there were currently too few violets for the caterpillars to feed upon.

The new violets have been specially grown in a local wildflower nursery from cuttings taken last year, the Trust says, and volunteers already spent much of last winter cutting back rushes and preparing the area.

National Trust ecological consultant Caroline Uff said they hoped that by seriously ramping up marsh violet numbers in these wetter parts of the Shropshire Hills, the species’ future will be secured. “Currently, these striking butterflies are hanging on in fragmented colonies. Through this new mass planting and habitat restoration the plan is to give these butterflies the space to move and flourish. New areas could start to re-colonise within a couple of years.

But the project was not just about one butterfly, she continued, but would also help create habitats for many other increasingly uncommon species. The Trust’s nature head, Ben McCarthy, added: “Targeted interventions such as these can make a huge difference in reversing the decline to our once charismatic wildlife.

“The delicate marsh violet and small pearl-bordered fritillary were once widespread and common, but have both suffered from land drainage and inappropriate management of our wetlands,” he said. “This hugely ambitious project to propagate and enhance the local population of marsh violets will help rebuild richer eco-systems - with the flower being the critical food source for the caterpillar - that is core to tackling the nature crisis.

“By making our sites bigger, better and more connected we are making space for nature and restoring populations of other threatened species as well such as the willow tit which thrive in these wet and complex wet woodlands.”

Amber Allott is NationalWorld’s environment and sustainability specialist, covering all things green - from climate to conservation. If you liked this article you can follow Amber on X (Twitter) here and sign up for the free daily NationalWorld Today newsletter here - with Amber bringing you the UK's most important, pressing, weird and wonderful environmental stories every Tuesday.