If you've been tempted by the Sunday supplements to recreate your own wildflower meadow you will know how hard it is to raise a field of dreams.
Sow a meadow seed mix into an existing lawn, let the grass grow and before long your meadow may be a spectacular crop of Perennial Ryegrass, Broad-leaved Dock and Stinging Nettles.
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All wildflower images from Community Nature Reserve |
Nettles and Docks may have their admirers (especially if you need one after the other!) but they aren't in the same league as the wildflowers associated with old meadows and the role-call of plants with such idiotically English romantic names, they sound like they belong in the cupboard of a medieval Apothecary.
Consider the following English common names of meadow flowers - they make an interesting found poem! Lady’s Mantle, Eyebright, Meadow Sweet, Lady’s Bedstraw, Rough Hawkbit, Devil’s Bit Scabious, Yellow Rattle, Quaking Grass, Wild Thyme, Melancholy Thistle, Sneezewort, Selfheal.
If we want to sympathetically create and manage wildflower meadows we need to understand the key characteristics of these habitats.
Meadows – Key features of wildflower meadows
Meadows are fields where grass is grown as a crop.
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Greater Knapweed |
Meadows are fields where grass is grown as a crop.
Wildflower meadows have arisen out of our long need to provide herbage for farm animals over the winter. They have evolved in the UK due to a pattern of long established management dating back hundreds, and in some locations thousands of years. Meadows managed for nature conservation have lower inputs and yields than agriculturally improved grasslands.
Species-rich Meadows thrive on poor soils.
The number of wildflowers found in a grassland is almost inversely proportional to the fertility of the soil. That is the poorer the soil the greater the diversity of the types of flowers found growing there. An extreme example of this is the chalk grasslands of the Downs, which are reported to have as many of 40 different species per square m.
Notable wildflower grasslands in Co Durham include the rare alkaline magnesian limestone grasslands found along the coast and nowhere else in the world and the upland meadows of the Durham Dales, the ultimate example of which is Hannah's Meadow.
Wildflower meadows are dominated by perennials.
Meadow wildflowers tend to be dominated by perennials ie plants that regrow year after year (although some like Oxeye Daisy are short lived). This enables the plant communities to cope with continual cutting and to compete with the grasses.
Cornfield annuals - Cornflower, Common Poppy and Corn Marigold are annual flowers and are not found in the competitive world of meadows - unless the soil has been cultivated.
The soils of ancient meadows are relatively undisturbed and this is often indicated by signs like the growth of very large circles of Fairy Ring Mushroom etc.
Meadows need management
Notable wildflower grasslands in Co Durham include the rare alkaline magnesian limestone grasslands found along the coast and nowhere else in the world and the upland meadows of the Durham Dales, the ultimate example of which is Hannah's Meadow.
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Planted cornfield annuals Blaydon Burn |
Wildflower meadows are dominated by perennials.
Meadow wildflowers tend to be dominated by perennials ie plants that regrow year after year (although some like Oxeye Daisy are short lived). This enables the plant communities to cope with continual cutting and to compete with the grasses.
Cornfield annuals - Cornflower, Common Poppy and Corn Marigold are annual flowers and are not found in the competitive world of meadows - unless the soil has been cultivated.
The soils of ancient meadows are relatively undisturbed and this is often indicated by signs like the growth of very large circles of Fairy Ring Mushroom etc.
Meadows need management
It is generally accepted that to thrive meadows need the following management processes
· Annual mowing only after the flowers have set seed.
· Removal of the hay crop off-site.
· Grazing by farm stock following hay making.
Leave a meadow uncut or fail to remove the cut hay crop and it is generally accepted that most meadows will eventually over time come to be dominated by rank grasses, shrub and ultimately woodland. In the current economic climate many of our neighbourhood grasslands, including road verges, will start to be left uncut as a cost saving measure. Unfortunately this will not necessarily have conservation benefits unless the grass is cut and removed from site annually.
Without grazing meadows can develop a dense ‘thatch’ at ground level which makes it difficult for new flowers to germinate. Old meadows were traditionally grazed with 'aftermath' grazing from Lammas (August 1) to Candlemass.(February 2). The biodiversity of some attractive grasslands can eventually be lost because of the difficulties of organising grazing - such as on village greens which may have been grazed in antiquity but which are not now normally fenced or grazed.
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Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil |
Even In Shakespeare’s day, and no doubt since mediaeval times, the importance of sound meadow management was well understood. In 'Henry the Fifth' the Duke of Burgundy laments the impact of war on the farmland of France after the Battle of Agincourt.
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The Yarrow flowering late due to dry spring. |
'The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistle, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility ….'
Meadows are easy to loose and hard to re-create
It is often quoted that 97% of our traditional hay meadows have been lost since the 1940’s mostly due to agricultural intensification and the application of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, inappropriate grazing or drainage.
I have a personal memory of a meadow in Tyne and Wear of such antiquity and permanence that you could not place a foot in it without standing on a Pyramidal orchid.
The site was rumoured to be associated with a long demolished Country House which originally dated back to an 11th Century Nunnery. It is therefore surprising that it only took one spray of a selective herbicide from a prospective agricultural tenant to permanently kill all the flowers.
It is often quoted that 97% of our traditional hay meadows have been lost since the 1940’s mostly due to agricultural intensification and the application of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, inappropriate grazing or drainage.
I have a personal memory of a meadow in Tyne and Wear of such antiquity and permanence that you could not place a foot in it without standing on a Pyramidal orchid.
The site was rumoured to be associated with a long demolished Country House which originally dated back to an 11th Century Nunnery. It is therefore surprising that it only took one spray of a selective herbicide from a prospective agricultural tenant to permanently kill all the flowers.
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Pyramidal Orchid |
A Community Meadow
The Meadow at East Hedleyhope could not have had a more different history and is the result of a reclamation of the East Hedleyhope Colliery which closed in 1959. The reclamation of the site was carried out by The National Coal Board in 1972. As was common at that time the pit was capped, the pit heaps levelled, the buildings demolished and the area was covered with a very thin layer of topsoil. The Meadow may have been fertilised and sowed with a standard agricultural grass mix.
The site was than conveyed to Durham County Council in 1977 as a possible site for a picnic area, although this never came into effect.
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Ragged Robin in marshy area. |
In 2004 the site was leased to the Community Association as a nature reserve. The first action of the Association was to reinstate a traditional regime of hay making and aftermath grazing. We were particular fortunate in this matter by having a very helpful and co-operative local farmer to carry out this work.
In autumn 2005 volunteers from the Association seeded 6 experimental plots into the existing sward by hand. A standard wildflower mix was sown including Yellow Rattle. Yellow Rattle is semi-parasitic on grass and reduces the vigour of grasses and encourages other wildflowers to grow. As a general rule habitats are best left to nature to develop in their own way but in this case it was decided to recreate the biodiversity of the meadow which had been lost after the spraying of manure and overgrazing on the site by the Council.
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Common Knapweed still not flowering in Aug |
The Meadow at East Hedleyhope is in many ways typical of the type of grassland which can develop on derelict sites but which has been in part artificially seeded to increase biodiversity. The sward is very short due to the poor soil conditions and in some areas there is bare ground while in other areas just flowers and no grasses grow. This is of course a fantastic habitat for invertebrates! It does also, because of its position on the fringes of the North Pennines, have something of the upland about it!
Flowers on the Meadow include Red and White Cover, Bird's-foot Trefoil, Common Knapweed, Common Sorrel, Greater Knapweed, Eyebright, Meadow Buttercup, Meadow Vetchling, Oxeye Daisy, Ribwort Plantain, Rough Hawkbit, Selfheal, Yellow Rattle, Crosswort and the occasional Pyramidal Orchid along with about 19 species of grasses. In the wetter areas Ragged Robin and Northern Marsh Orchid are found. An annual survey of plants is carried out and the Meadow has been shown to have increased floristically in the last 6 years … but it has been the last two years that have been particularly interesting.
After an incredibly cold, snowy winter in 2009/2010 and an exceptionally cold spring the grass just did not grow. By July the growth in the Meadow was declared too poor to be cut for hay. Instead the Meadow was grazed in August and September by sheep.
To our surprise the early sheep grazing encouraged the development of 1000's of Waxcap fungi. The Waxcap Meadow habitat is a UK Biodiversity Priority Habitat which we only discovered by accident by bringing grazing forward due to the cold spring. Waxcap meadows are normally associated with old parkland and where low nutrient grasslands are well grazed. For more information on the conservation of Waxcap Meadows see Aberystwyth University.
To our surprise the early sheep grazing encouraged the development of 1000's of Waxcap fungi. The Waxcap Meadow habitat is a UK Biodiversity Priority Habitat which we only discovered by accident by bringing grazing forward due to the cold spring. Waxcap meadows are normally associated with old parkland and where low nutrient grasslands are well grazed. For more information on the conservation of Waxcap Meadows see Aberystwyth University.
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The Cowslips fared poorly in the dry spring. |
Come July the rains started and the Meadow got a real boost with species like Yarrow starting to flower in late July. The Yellow Rattle also got something of a second boost. The Common Knapweed, on which so many of the adult butterflies rely for nectar did not flower until the 2nd week in August, two months later that what would normally be expected.
Again there was not enough grass to take a hay crop, this time due to lack of growth caused by the dry spring. A clear case of not being able to make hay because the sun had shone.
There is one area where the hay has been very well cut and that is by volunteer Malcolm who works so hard to keep the paths around the Meadow so pleasant to walk using the lovely Honda mower supplied with funding from the Big Lottery.
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| One man mowed a meadow. Malcolm was 'ere keeping the paths open. |
There is one area where the hay has been very well cut and that is by volunteer Malcolm who works so hard to keep the paths around the Meadow so pleasant to walk using the lovely Honda mower supplied with funding from the Big Lottery.
We are however expectant that we will get another bumper crop of Waxcap mushrooms. More of this in an Autumnal blog…
External Links
Reference
D Gamble and T St. Pierre, 2010, 'Hay TIme in the Yorkshire Dales'.
Yorkshire Dales Milllennium Trust.
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