I was hoping that this would allow me to review the changes over time. This has proved very useful: Nicole always berates me for concentrating too much on what needs to be done at the expense of recognising what has actually been achieved. Quite right too. I planned to take a picture each month on the 11th. I suppose thinking about it that I should have done it at a particular time of day. Oh well, that is probably being a bit unrealistic. The pictures for August were lost, which really is a pity since they actually looked like a meadow. I've put a replacement in to show the general idea, but obviously it isn't from the fixed point so it's a bit pointless, ifyou'll excuse the pun ha ha. Anyway enough waffle. Here are the pic's they will be updated each month.
Right well this was the situation in early april 06, with the plants which had established themselves in September 05 doing well in the wet meadow, well watered over the winter with overflow from the pond. In the dry meadow, the harsh conditions meant that little was going on except for the clump of Cowslips I had planted near the opposite end (see flower pictures for details).
Sorry about the picture quality the early morning shot was affected by the sun unfortunately, so the quite dramatic difference between the wet meadow (full of healthy looking little plants) and the dry meadow (a few stunted looking clumps of weeds) is not as clear as i would have hoped. The pink blobs in the fore ground are ragged robin.
In June the wet meadow looked pretty lush, while the dry meadow was still very patchy and looked much less healthy.
By July 06 both meadows were at their peak, with abundant seed heads in both areas. The dry meadow was still realtively patchy in comparison, however.
As I had no other picture which showed both areas in all their...erm dry, grassy, glory, i I had to use this one and expose my hat to the world! Taken on the 5th of August.
Taken about a month after being cut, showing good regrowth in both wet and dry meadow areas.
By october the Autumn rains had helped the meadow to look the way my friend Rob had wanted it: "I always associated the word 'meadow' with lushness..." Cut to the bone...
November and no major changes. The extremely mild autumn is shown by the lushness of the meadow and the blanket weed continuing to thrive in the pond.
The really grim weather and all that bloody shopping meant I never got round to taking any pictures until the 25th, so here it is, the meadow on Christmas Day. Good job it wasn't a white Christmas eh?
Sorry, I seem to have missed the last one, to be honest there wasn't a lot to see. As you can see there is not going on...but the orchids have been creeping up and things are starting to move.
Almost forgot to do it this month, early stirrings in the meadow are not really apparant at this scale, but hopefully the slightly fresher green of early spring growth is.
Well, I forgot to take a picture last month, probably something to do with getting married. Anyway June rolled in, and all the rain we were having meant that everything was growing like mad. The red clover which had been storming ahead in May had now now gone to seed and looked fairly ropey, but the Oxe Eye Daisies were in full flow.
The rains continued to fall and the grass (and everything else) continued to grow, particularly the wet meadow where the overflow from the pond made it so lush I decided to cut the hay early. I also wanted to take advantage of what could have been the only dry spell for the rest of the summer. I cut the hay and left it in situ, turning occasionally, for a week or so to allow the numerour frogs, toads and invertebrates to moce on to the verge I left by the pond.
The dry meadow still had some interest to come, with Knapweed flowering and Scabious still to flower. One weed which we decided to leave was the evening primrose, although it's time is marked.
Well it's been a while but I have finally got round to taking another fixed point photo. The really significant features are the Birds foot Trefoil near the pond, the vipers bugloss in the mid ground and the St John's Wort in the dry meadow. And of course the big aluminium posts.
Finally got round to taking a picture for the fixed point series. Not much can be seen beyond the pond jungle, the meadow is pretty much dormant now, and the only things of note are the interestingly symmetrically coloured cherry tree and the wooden hay stack structure (the hay is now in the shed...)