Another post on meadows - sorry, but it's that time of year and you can't say too much about meadows. "Meadow" would be a bit of a stretch to describe the area which we've been experimenting with over the last 9 months. It's about 30m by 13m (mini-meadows can be a lot smaller), and started off as being part of the pasture in front of the house. It would have been an eyesore had we started off by stripping off the top soil or spraying the existing sward, and the grasses were too varied and interesting to lose in any case. Steve Alton recommended grazing and chain harrowing in the autumn, which we did. You can see how it started here. We then sowed LOADS of Rattle, and kept the sheep on the area over the winter to push the seed into contact with the earth as they marched about. I should say that this was all very high risk as I knew we had people coming to two one day courses in meadow creation and management in June the following year - i.e. last weekend. Anyway, thank goodness it has worked.
We now have a sea of Yellow Rattle and, very obligingly, a single plant of a relatively rare native species, the catchily named Corky-fruited Water Dropwort. Andrew George tells me it can last some time in a sward without flowering and is indigenous to these parts, so there may be other plants out there in the rest of the field.
Along with the Bumblebees - who love Rattle - I also spotted our first Meadow Brown today - I hope we have as many this year as we had last. It gives me the greatest pleasure seeing these colonial species, knowing that we have created the right habitat for them to live and multiply in. Andrew made the same point during our meadow course last weekend, where among other butterflies we saw Large Skippers on a site he has designed at Carymoor.
I'm hoping we'll have some here this year; on our existing meadow area we've got Cocksfoot as one of our grasses for the larvae and loads of some of their favourite nectar plants, including Bird's foot Trefoil, Yarrow and Knapweed. Anyway, back to Caroline's mini-meadow. Once the Rattle has set seed we'll cut it and let the sheep back in until autumn (I'll put a little fence around the Corky-fruited Water Dropwort so it can seed later on, doubtless to general hilarity). Come autumn and we will sow a pure widlflower mix into the areas where the Rattle has been most effective in reducing the grass, or use seeds collected from another area. It has been a simple and effective way to start a meadow area without losing our existing grass or stripping the topsoil off. Just the sort of thing our tutor-in-chief Sue Everett would approve of. Phew. Thanks Steve.
Related Posts: Yellow Rattle
