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Seven years on, it is starting to look respectable, filled with fritillaries, oxeye daisies, devil’s-bit scabious, and bird’s-foot trefoil.

The summer of 2002 revealed wildflowers with delightful names such as bird’s-foot trefoil and lady’s bedstraw that hadn’t been seen in such numbers for a generation, along with a profusion of insects, which produced a continuous thrum – “something”, in Tree’s words, “we hadn’t even known we’d been missing”.

Much has been made of the methane emissions of livestock, but these are lower in biodiverse pasture systems that include wild plants such as angelica, common fumitory, shepherd’s purse and bird’s-foot trefoil because they contain fumaric acid – a compound that, when added to the diet of lambs at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, reduced emissions of methane by 70%.

But what you often won’t find is the lovely variety of wildflowers that 30 to 40 years ago decorated these same roadside verges: comfrey, lady’s smock, white dead-nettle, garlic mustard, bird’s-foot trefoil, ox-eye daisy, early purple orchid and many more.

The wildflowers provide nectar and pollen, and are a refuge for many declining bee, butterfly, bird, bat and bug species, with plants such as bird’s-foot trefoil – a food source for 160 species of insect – found on many verges.