This year, Be Nice to Nettles Week is 19-30 May 2010. Many people’s only experiences of nettles are being stung, or trying to eradicate this ‘weed’ from their garden, but throughout history nettles have been appreciated as useful plants.
The Telegraph currently has a picture gallery showing a Top Ten uses for nettles, which includes nettle soup and tea, a wildlife habitat and a free plant feed. Nettles can also be used in herbal medicine and to make fibres for clothing and rope, and more. There’s even a book called 101 Uses for Stinging Nettles
If you want to learn more about nettles then you could visit the Natural History Museum wildlife garden on Saturday 22nd or Sunday 23rd May for Nettle Weekend. But if you can’t get excited about nettles then how about signing up for the NHM’s cherry tree or bluebell surveys, so that you can help study UK biodiversity.
liz wrote:
...on Wed, May 5 '10 (646 days ago)