Once the seed was sown in September 2005 it was then just a case of sitting back and letting nature take its course. We were blessed with mild, damp Autumn in 2005 which made for ideal conditions for the germination and establishment of the seedlings. Over winter not a lot happened so the fixed point photo for April 06 shows the situation quite well. The well watered area in the wet meadow benefitted from th epond overflow and and had established well. However the dry meadow was ...well...dry, and not a lot was growing there besides the cowslips I had planted (see the plant pictures photo album) and a collection of 'weeds' (mainly spurge). I am a very impatient oerson, but Nicole managed to persuade me to let it be. Nevertheless I did intervene a little with some additional planting, some of which I had planned all along anyway:
- Orchids: I love native orchids, particulalrly Bee orchids (Ophrys apifera) so when i found that you can buy and plant them I was immediately hooked on the idea. I bought a batch from a lovely chap called Richard Manuel, who is the Secretary of the Hardy Orchid Society http://www.hardyorchidsociety.org.uk/. We bought 6 Green Winged Orchids (Anacamptis morio) and 12 Bee Orchids, and he also gave me a couple of Lax Flowered Orchids. He also gave me lots of advice including a very comprehensive recipe for a special mix of beech leaf mould compost, which was quite hard to find round here. I really enjoyed the technicality of it all and when the bulbs all sprouted in late September into tiny little plants it was very exciting. In the spring I transplanted the strongest looking Green Winged Orchid plants and transplanted them into the Wet meadow, since the dry meadow (where I hoped to put the Bee orchids) was still a very harsh environment. I protected them with eggshells to keep the slugs at bay and monitored them religiously...so I could watch them all keel over and die. It seemed that they just rotted, the ground it seems was just too damp. The rest of my first batch of orchids fared no better, they either rotted in the soil or they dried out and shrivelled up. I haven't given up, however, so watch this space...
- Snakeshead fritillary - I love these plants as much as I love native orchids, and while I sowed seed with the wet meadow mix I was not expecting good results so I thought would help them along bit. I planted some plants (rather than bulbs) which subsequently flowered and then rotted, much the same as the orchids had. I found this hard to understand as they are generally plants of moist grassland habitats in the wild. Hmph. I will try again next year...
- Perforate St John's Wort (Hypericum perforata) I found this on a market stall at a knocked down price in May 2006 and just thought I would stick it in the Dry Meadow, it does sort of fit with the mix of plants and helped to add some interest early on when th area was so bare. The bees loved it and it gives me great opportunity to bore people with the old 'this is perforate st john's wort because it has holes in it's leaves' routine (which isn't necessarily true - other Hypericums also have this feature - but the kids seem to like it. I will try to take a picture next summer). Not being one of my favourite plants, it established well and has thrived.
- Because the dry meadow was not doing much i thought i woudl experiment with sowing some of t hseed i had left over in seed trays and transplanting it. To account for the vernalisation requirement of many species I put some in the fridge for a couple of weeks (it took a while to convince Nicole about this) before sowing them, and did a trial with both chilled and unchilled seeds. Neither was very successfull and the few seedlings which germinated did not transplant well.
- Assorted dry meadow plants - I also bought a batch of plants from the same company Ibought the pond plants from ( http://www.naturescape.co.uk/ ) including
- Bulbous buttercup - Ranunculus bulbosus
- Meadow buttercup - Ranunculus acris
- Salad burnet - Sanguisorba minor
- Goats beard - Tragopogon pratensis
- Lady's bedstraw - Galium verum
- Devil's bit scabious - Succissa pratensis
- These were planted in various places around the dry meadow in July 2006 to help fill in the many gaps. So far they all seem to have established successfully.
- Finally in August it came time to cut the hay for the first time. I was initially going to get a scythe to do this, but franly for such a small area it woudl have been insane and i would probably have ended up chopping off my foot. As part of my researches i came across this site which is well worth looking at if you like looking at slightly mad austrians with extravagent clothing and interesting facial hair armed with scythes: http://www.thescytheshop.co.uk/picture%20gallery.html. So anyway, out came the shears and frankly even that only took about half an hour. But we did get 2 whole BAGS (!!!!) of hay, so now we are going to have to get a rabbit to eat the hay. I left the hay on the grass to allow it to ripen off and to ensure that the invertebrates which lived on it could escape. After this the stubble was cut with a mower (at the highest setting) several times until the end of September to simulate late simmer grazing (until we get a very small flock of sheep sorted out)...
- A final order of plants (for this year) have been ordered and are due to be delivered any minute. I'll tell you more when they get here ;o) Can't wait!
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