Wildflower Meadow

Introduction

Meadow establishment is a bit hit and miss in its success rate. All that can be provided are conditions that may lead to a successful meadow being created. In the end the flowers present will largely depend on local conditions and seed availability. If successful, the true meadow will not appear until 5 - 8 years on from the initial starting point. This in itself will also depend on a correct cutting regime being used.

Soil Preparation

The main problem with meadow establishment is soil fertility. Poverty tends to favour a very wide range of wildflowers, and gives them a bit of an advantage over the more greedy, coarse species.

In our situation, the land contained an established rye grass meadow. When this was cut the clippings were returned to the soil. This resulted in a good level of fertility, in the top few inches of the soil. Since we required low fertility the top six inches of soil was removed by a J.C.B., this hopefully leaving a less fertile soil base. Ideally the best option would have been to grow nutrient depleting crops such as potatoes. However time did not allow this.

The area around the main meadow was to be used as permanent short grass and would contain plant species that that would act as caterpillar food. The top soil was not removed from this area and the problem was how to remove the rye grass by non chemical means. The answer was to cover the area with black polythene for several months to kill off the grass. This process was helped by a very hot summer which effectively resulted in the grass being burnt off. On removing the polythene, the area was left for three weeks to allow germination of ' weed seedlings'. These would have been dormant in the soil. The sudden exposure to sunlight would have resulted in their germination. These were then removed during cultivation.

Planting

The area was cultivated, levelled and raked in August 2001. It was then left for three weeks as stated earlier and raked again.

With the area now level and fairly weed free, it was ready to sow. The plants selected were those that would provide a suitable food source for the local butterflies. These meadow plants will not flower until the second year. To produce flowers in the first year, a mixture of annual flowers including corn cockle, poppy, cornflower and corn marigold were also sown.

Sowing was achieved by dividing the area into five metre squares. Children in groups of four helped mark out the grids, weigh out the seed and sow it. A great way to get them to apply their math's! The seed was mixed with play sand at a ratio of three parts sand to one part seed. This provided a clearer picture of where the children were broadcasting the seed. A necessary requirement since the actual sowing rate was two grams of seed per square metre. To get a really even coverage the seed was divided into two halves, and sowing one half in one direction and then the other portion at right angels to it. After sowing, the area was rolled with a heavy roller.

Result

At present, March 2002, the germination of grass species has been disappointing. It appears that none of the grass species has germinated. There is however a proliferation of weed / flowers growing. It will be interesting to see how these develop. Meadows usually suffer from the fact that the flowers fail to compete with the grass species. At least at present this is not the case. It is noticeable that the area where the top soil was removed has less undesirable weed species such as Mayweed.

Update June 2002 - The grass species are starting to appear and there is a good growth of perennial plants under the tall flowering annual plants. The perennial plants will form the meadow flowers for next year. The annual flowers have produced a stunning display this year and reflect how well the children carried out the sowing.

 

 

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