Blimey there are some people out there looking at this cobbled together piece of rubbish. Well, sorry i have been so completely lame and failed to keep up to date with developments in the meadow this year. It just seems to have disappeared up the spout and little seems to have occurred. OK so i ripped up the lawn, and produced a daft number of seedlings which we sold for the Wildlife Trust. But not much has happened in the meadow besides rampant spring growth. It is looking about as good now as it does all year. I am planning a comprehensive species list but so far this year we have had:
April: a really good flush of Cowslips, the first and only Bee Orchid has increased the size of its largest leaf up to about 50 mm (at this rate it will flower in about 10 years) before being destroyed by snails and the Salad Burnet turned into huge 50 cm tall plants. A single white Fritillary bloomed in the wet meadow
Early May: the first grasses started to flower, with good populations of Quaking Grass. Red Clover and Birds Foot Trefoil started to dominate. The Perforate St Johns Wort began to grow and later in the month the Ox Eye Daisies were starting to develop. The Knapweed started to develop.
Mid May: The Red Clover started bloom, dominating the dry grassland. The Trefoil began to bloom in the wet meadow and several Ragged Robin plants began to emerge through the sward.
Late May: Ox-eye daisy started to bloom in both the dry and wet meadows, in the dry meadow the Yellow Rattle seed I sowed earlier in the year successfully germinated in several spots and in the wet meadow the Ragged Robin bloomed.
The other main event of late may was a lovely gift left by my neighbour while we were away on holiday. Misguidedly thinking we would want his grass cuttings, he kindly dumped them over the fence right on the low nutrient dry meadow. Lovely. So I had to remove the mountain of cuttings and cut the sward to remove what was left. This has left a 'bald patch' which i have treated as an opprtunity so i have placed a camera with an intervalometer nearby and will try to make a time lapse film of the recovery, hopefully.
As i always say, will try to post more stuff and more pix.