Why plant a meadow? The inspiration.

I must admit for myself it was primarily because they are just SO beautiful. One journalist described another meadow in Somerset as a Monet paining And it is just like having a Monet painting on your doorstep only its a moving painting. Every few weeks through the Spring and Summer it changes as different species flower. A wildflower meadow is a truly beautiful thing. Somehow it's very naturalness is part of its miracle. All winter its just a patch of stubbly grass then in the Spring there's explosion of flowers, it is a source of inspiration everytime I see it. 

My meadow is a like a painting in the front of my house

Then there's the satisfaction of knowing that you are contributing to wildlife, particularly bees. The reasons for the decline in bee numbers apparently complex, but some things are beyond debate. That bee numbers are in a dramatic decline and that they are essential for plant growth as rain and sun. We also know that bees thrive in wildflower meadows and that 98% of Britain's meadows have disappeared since the 1930's, so by growing a meadow you will be giving your local bee population a boost.

From the bumble bee conservation trust

I have tried to find out if there's any funding for growing a meadow and have not found any grants, though I understand there is promised government support for growing meadows (see below).

Some interesting links on the issues mentioned in this blog...

One couple's amazing meadow

The bumblebee conservation trust

Government promises to increase wildflower habitats

Preparing and seeding the feild

The field viewed from the house after grass was cut

Day two. The field is prepped and seeded

They came, the harrowed, they seeded and they left all in day! It was quite a job. Normally, and ideally, the field would be prepared in advance but for various reasons the donor hay had been cut the day before, so it was a mad rush to get my field prepared for seeding asap.

According to the Wildlife Trust the seed should be taken off the donor site and spread on the new site all on the same day. We were clearly off schedule on this but I decided to go ahead as the hay from the donor site was still quite green (ie. there was still plenty of seed on it) and after all the planning it seemed better to have a go with a less than perfect scenario than call off the project. 

This is after all one of the reasons I wanted to write this blog.  Its one thing to read about how things should be done in a perfect world, but the vagaries of real life inevitably make a degree of muddle of the best laid plans. We'll see the results in the spring!

So first step was to scarify the turf. This was done with a power harrow (shown below). The aim is to scrape off the grass to bare the soil for the wildflowers. Its all about giving the wildlflowers a fighting chance against the grass. Rye grass as found in pasture fields is very vigorous, but does depend on a certain level of soil fertility which is why farmers muck spread.

Wildflowers and grasses thrive on poor soil. So the trick is to convert a fertile grass-rich field into an impoverished site for wildflowers. Not a quick job. To achieve this I have had the grass cut and removed at least once a year for 10 years, slowly drawing out the fertility in the soil, with the following result as recorded by Matthew Marshal from the Somerset Wildlife Trust.

In the large meadow there is limited cover of herbs with only common mouse-ear, creeping buttercup, meadow buttercup and cut-leaved cranesbill observed during the walkover survey. It was interesting to note that whilst the sward is dominated by rank species such as false oat-grass, soft brome, cocksfoot alongside Yorkshire fog and creeping bent there was a very low frequency of perennial ryegrass within the sward. 

So it seems the policy had worked! There is another site also being seeded in the village with the same donor hay. That site had not had the same treatment but was sprayed off earlier in the summer. If I can I'll get some photos and see the results of that method.

Getting the grass as close cut as possible in every corner of the field

The topper that cut the field on day one was a side arm machine which meant it couldn't cut in the narrow areas of field in between the tree plantations and get right up the edges. This meant there were significant patches of lush green grass dotted around the site. So I did quite a bit of mowing with my ride on. It probably made no difference but it more clearly delineated the area for seeding and I felt anything I could do to break down the grass strongholds in the site the better. 

Setting up the power harrow to scarify the soil before seeding.

Once the grass was cut the next stage was to' scarify the sward'. This means to scratch and break up the turf. We discovered quite quickly that 

a.the soil needed going over several times

b. with the spikes at the deepest setting, 

c. and at speed, in order to get the soil to look like this.

The purpose of harrowing is to expose the soil for 'seed contact'

According to the instructions the sward should be 50% bare, but in reality harrowing churns up a lot of grass which then covers the soil. So we spent some time scraping patches of soil around the field, after each go with harrow, trying to ascertain whether or not we'd achieved this. What we could see was lines of ruts in the soil and seed so we hoped that there was enough contact between soil and seed to get a critical growth of wildflower to overpower the grass.

Everywhere I looked there were piles of grass churned 
up by the power harrow

This did concern me a little, as I didn't want to mulch the soil and add to its fertility. So the guys very helpfully piled it up for us and we picked up great armfuls and took them off the site. I don't know whether this was worth doing, if anyone knows let me know.

The seed is spread

Once we'd got a satisfactory surface the seed could be spread. The 'seed' of course arrived in the form of bales taken from the donor site. It had been baled 36 hours beforehand, ideally it would be baled and spread within hours to avoid any heating up of the seed in the bales. So it was rush to get it out and complete the process by the end of the day.

The bale was loaded into the back of the machine (can't remember the name but I can find out!) and spewed out through a funnel and spread all over the field. Happily it started raining during the course of all this which softened the soil.

How to turn a field into a wildflower meadow 

If you are interested in meadows, and would like to create one yourself but don't have a big budget then here's how I did it. 

Before

This is my 7 acre field before we  started work on it. The hope is that next spring it will be full of wild grasses and flowers like the meadow below which I started 2 years ago.

My first small scale meadow

Only this meadow is only 60m squared. I made this one by taking off the topsoil with a digger and spreading bought seed. The results are wonderful but the method was too costly to use on a large scale. 

too costly to do the same for the whole field

So I began researching how to create a meadow on a much larger scale and after 2 years found an expert from the Somerset Wildlife Trust who very kindly explained the green hay method. I've set it out in full below, but in a nutshell, hay is taken from an existing wildflower meadow while it is still green (i.e before the seed has dropped) and is spread on a prepared field.

Crucial ingredients for creating meadow using green hay are,
An existing local site with an owner willing to buy or donate the hay
A willing local farmer to do the hard work using his machinery.

I found the wonderful Don, the owner of the 'donor' site by asking around. Everyone I knew who was into natural landscapes, wildlife etc I would bang on about my hopes to create a wildflower meadow. I was eventually put in touch with Don. His meadow has been in existance as long as anyone can remember (since before the war). I went to see it one late summer evening last year and was blown away at how beautiful the rolling acres of flowers and grasses were. I couldn't believe my luck when I explained the project and Don said he'd be willing to donate his hay.

Harvey, my friendly farmer has been taking hay off my 7 acre field for 3 years now in exchange for doing the work on the fields. The donor hay has been cut and is being baled as I write, I'm just hoping they'll be able to get back here tonite and finish baling my field as the donor hay should reach the new site on the same day...which should be tommorrow! More news then. In the meantime...

The green hay method for establishing new wildflower meadows

1. Prepare the new site 

a. by taking off as much grass as possible. Two cuts, (the second really close), is best followed by some sheep for a couple of weeks.

b. Scarify the sward - expose 50% of soil.

2. Collect seed from donor site

a. Cut hay just as plants have come to seed but before they are dropping.

b. Spread the seed onto the new site within hours of cutting. 

Best case scenario: hay is spread immediately

Worst case scenario: hay is baled and left overnight or longer

Intermediate: hay is left on ground and collected later

3. Graze new site one to two weeks later

Grazing by sheep or cattle or horses after seeding helps trample the seed into the ground.

4. Management

There are two schools of thought.

a.Treat as per an established meadow with one late cut the following summer. Ideally an early cut for sileage in April, leave May-July, cut early August. Or a variation, graze Jan-March, leave April - July, cut end July/early August and graze again in the autumn.

b. Graze all year round for first year to keep the sward open and maximise chances of seed 'taking'. Then treat as hay meadow thereafter.

The advantages of this method, and of seeding locally, are well described in the the Grasslands Trust site.