Catch up TV

3. Cities

In the third and final programme of the series, Sarah Raven takes her mission to halt the rapid decline in Britain's essential bees, butterflies and pollinating insects to our cities and challenges our city parks departments to sow nectar rich modern meadows, and to make their floral displays more nectar and pollen rich to help to increase the amount of food and habitat for pollinating insects.\n\nWith the use of intensive farming methods, regionalisation of crops, and the loss of wildflower meadows and grasslands estimated at around 98%, the countryside can be feast or famine for our pollinators. So Sarah discovers how our cities and sprawling urban landscapes can play their part and become pollen and nectar rich networks of modern meadows and nectar rich flower displays.\n\nSarah starts her campaign in Birmingham. She challenges the parks department to replace endless acres of close mown grass with modern insect friendly meadows and to get rid of Victorian bedding displays. Sarah wants to show them that there is a more modern and sustainable way to landscape our cities that can save money and save our pollinators too.\n\nSarah visits the London Olympic Park to see a radically different approach to modern city landscaping. The park is the biggest to be built in the UK for decades, and tens of thousands of square metres of modern pollinator friendly meadows are being sown to come into glorious flower for the games in August 2012. Sarah gets an exclusive preview of the ground breaking biodiverse and pollinator friendly landscaping.\n\nAnd at home Sarah puts modern meadow seed mixes to the test for people and pollinators alike. She wants to see if the seed mixes can pack a floral punch and supply our pollinators with a flow of pollen and nectar throughout the year.

Source: BBC 2