The Woodland Wildflower project (originally known as Flowers of the Forest) was established in the Forest of Marston Vale as part of a programme of local woodland wildflower seed collection projects. The aims were:

- to involve communities in safeguarding and creating a woodland flora for the future

- to preserve the fast disappearing ground flora of British Woodlands by producing sustainable regional sources of seeds and bulbs available for planting in woodland.

This project built on the success of the Bluebell Recovery Project, piloted in the Mersey Forest Area, by expanding the project nationwide, to incorporate all twelve Community Forests in England.

Locally, the project started in early 2001 and has been operating successfully since then, with the exception of the first spring (i.e. 2001) when Foot & Mouth Disease prevented access to woodlands and the Bedfordshire countryside generally.

The range of species collected was much wider than in the pilot project. To ensure a continued and sustainable seed source, a proportion of the collections were grown by Landlife, a charity with 15 years experience of growing wildflowers, to produce seeds of known regional provenance.