Wasted Flowers

Flowers - Picked and Abandoned

What a waste!

These flowers may look interesting and colourful on the stonework but they have been picked on Newington Green and just left to die. Children would have had a few minutes of fun collecting them, probably trampling on other plants in the flower beds at the same time, but then lost interest, so the flowers were left totally wasted - and numerous little creatures have either lost their habitat or even their lives in the process.

If these flowers had been allowed to keep growing, the children and many other people could have enjoyed looking at them for days on end - and they would also have provided food and shelter for many small creatures. Young children do not understand this, unless told by someone older.

This lack of care towards the natural world is not a new problem. Over 200 years ago Mary Wollstonecraft, who ran a girls' school on Newington Green, complained of the mistreatment of plants and animals and suggested a way of teaching children to look after them instead. Wollstonecraft wrote that children should have their curiosity excited and that 'A taste for the beauties of nature should be very early cultivated: many things, with respect to the vegetable and animal world, may be explained in an amusing way, and this is in an innocent source of pleasure within every one's reach' 

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters 1787.

Perhaps everyone could grow some flowers at home for children to love and learn to care for. You could also follow Mary Wollstonecraft's advice and read some of the wonderful books for children that are available now - but please stop your children from picking the flowers and other plants on Newington Green, as they are there for everyone to enjoy and they allow numerous small creatures, such as the all-important honey bee, to survive in this urban jungle.

April 2010