It's quite likely (unless, like me, you spend your weekends crawling through meadows on green knees) that you have never heard of sulphur clover. I wouldn't hold it against you if you hadn't. Sulphur clover is an all-too-scarce representative of a meadow flora (on boulder clay in southern East Anglia) which has largely been eradicated from the landscape.

Sulphur clover had nearly gone from Norfolk until Helen Baczkowska of Norfolk Wildlife Trust - and subsequently several of her colleagues - made it their mission to save it. Working with landowners, communities and authorities, they have helped restore and recreate biodiverse meadows across South Norfolk, importing the seeds of native flowers in hay meticulously harvested from nearby remnants of a habitat all but lost. Spiny restharrow, zigzag clover, dyer's greenweed, fragrant agrimony, sulphur clover, and other declining plants of clay-rich ancient meadows, have all been helped to recolonise south Norfolk in this way.

These plants have reclaimed small parts of a landscape where they thrived for centuries. And, just as importantly, they have been reclaimed as local heritage by people who – with Helen's guidance – have become champions for these and other declining species.

This summer, it was my privilege to visit Jubilee Meadow at Stoke Holy Cross, as a guest of meadow project stalwarts Pauline and Dave Jones and Liz and Ray Dack. This pocket handkerchief of land, squeezed between a housing estate and a playing field, is wonderful: wriggling, pulsing and buzzing with life. It is a living example of what a committed community, backed by sound advice from conservationists and an enlightened parish council, can achieve for nature.

Among drifts of pinkish Yorkshire fog, here were the blooms of musk mallow, hop trefoil, hedge bedstraw, hairy St-John's-wort, and – of course – sulphur clover, all brought as seed from local sites, to ensure the genetic appropriateness of the plants for local soils. Here were bee orchids on a sandy bank. Here was a willow wigwam, woven to give exploring children a place to hide. Here were the chirps of field and meadow grasshoppers and the fizz of Roesel's bush-crickets. Here were upturned metal dustbin lids, filled with flints, offering water to the bees, hedgehogs and dunnocks that have made the Jubilee Meadow home.

This is the best of conservation: a community, a developer, a parish council and a conservation NGO, working in concert to bring nature back. But I was amongst the sulphur clover of Stoke Holy Cross to hear a different story. For Dave, Pauline, Liz and Ray are double conservation heroes. In addition to all they do for nature in their community, they have left legacies in their wills to Norfolk Wildlife Trust.

'Norfolk Wildlife Trust has given us so much,' says Pauline, as we stand beneath a little owl box that Ray has built. 'I want them to be able to preserve new places.'

'Leaving a legacy is an obvious thing to do, for us,' Dave adds. 'I've never met anyone at NWT who doesn't have this massive enthusiasm for nature.'

The Trust's support has been fundamental to the Jubilee Meadow project, Dave believes. 'What NWT does beyond reserves is just fantastic. These projects are so important because they're locally based; they involve the community,' he says. 'Legacies support these projects, plus the work that NWT does with every generation. Their involvement with schools, the materials they produce, the garden projects, it's just amazing.'

For Liz, who has volunteered with the Trust's Engagement Team for nearly 15 years, our work with young people is of huge importance. 'You sow a seed,' she says, 'and hope young people grow up to love nature like I do.'

Liz is up at dawn most days, taking photographs of Norfolk's wildlife, many of which we use in our publications. She deeply feels for wildlife in the county. 'We have to make a place for nature to call home,' she says, 'and corridors for wild creatures to get around. If we don't do something now, and leave places like the meadow to people who know what to do, what will happen to my great-granddaughter and her generation? I'm Norfolk born and bred. Leaving a legacy to Norfolk Wildlife Trust feels natural.'

Liz, Ray, Dave and Pauline are not alone. All over Norfolk, and beyond, people have left legacies in their wills to Norfolk Wildlife Trust. People who love Norfolk's wildlife. People who want a greener future for the county's young people. People who know that every penny of their hard-earned money will be spent for nature.

In the century of our existence, most of the bravest and most powerful things that we have done for nature have been funded through the generosity of our supporters. Our original land purchases at Cley Marshes, Hickling Broad, Thetford Heath, Weeting Heath and many more of our great reserves were funded by subscriptions and donations. Much more recently, the purchase and restoration of our first reserve at Grimston Warren was funded by Muriel Hallett, in memory of her husband Tony. Likewise, much of the construction of the Simon Aspinall Wildlife Education Centre at Cley was funded by Simon's family, in his memory.

What Norfolk Wildlife Trust has achieved in its first 100 years is remarkable. But we have never been alone. All along we have counted on the generosity, the volunteering hours, the support and friendship of countless lovers of nature in the county. Without you, we would be nothing. Today, more than ever before, we count on the generous legacies of Ray and Liz, of Dave and Pauline, and many others like them, for the delivery of our vision of a wilder Norfolk.

I left Stoke Holy Cross this summer inspired by a little creamy flower in the grass. A flower that’s reappearing across the ancient landscape of the Claylands. Assisted by Norfolk Wildlife Trust, by local people, and by our countless conservation allies. And funded by people who love Norfolk's wildlife, just like you.

Leaving a gift in your will to Norfolk Wildlife Trust is a powerful way to protect Norfolk's wildlife and wild spaces for many years to come. To find out more, and to get in touch with our Legacy Officer, visit our Gifts in Wills page.