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Creating wild flower grasslands Advice, project supervision and practitioner training is available on a consultancy basis.
I can provide a full service, including project design, seed collection and procurement, and advising on post-establishment care. I am also happy to work with other, more local contractors and seed suppliers, in areas that are distant from my home base. Project examples
The majority of the Berkshire Downs is no longer "downland" in the true sense of the word - most is intensively farmed arable land with very few pockets of original downland remaining. So, in 2002 I was delighted to be approached by Charles Egerton, racehorse trainer and owner of Heads Farm on the Berkshire Downs. At the time the farm was all arable, the last grassland fields having been ploughed in the 1970s. Charles was keen to restore native chalk grassland and habitats for skylarks, brown hare and grey partridge. Defra keenly supported our ideas, and with funding from the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, 40 hectares of new native chalk grassland has been established using wild-collected seed from the Cotswolds and North Wessex Downs. Brush-harvested seed was supplemented by hand-collected seed of additional wild flowers, gleaned from nearby road verges and small fragments of native grasslands in the area. In all, over 60 species were introduced to the new grasslands. June 2005: 20 months after sowing, many of the sown species are in flower. The most abundant wild flowers are Oxeye Daisy, Yellow Rattle, Rough Hawkbit and Red Clover. There is also a lot of Sanfoin, Kidney Vetch and grasses such as Upright Brome and Sweet Vernal-grass are showing well. Some scarcer species such as the parasitic Lesser Broomrape were also observed. On this visit I counted over 40 species in flower; later in the year many others, such as Field Scabious, Wild Basil, Burnet Saxifrage and Small Scabious were also in flower. Viper's Bugloss is the tall blue flower in the foreground. Seed from this species was collected from Crookham and Greenham Commons SSSI and spread by hand without separating from fruiting stems. This year the field was topped in early July, to supress Creeping Thistle; this resulted in second burst of flowers in August through September. The field is now autumn-winter sheep-grazed. The farm is part of a Game Conservancy Trust Grey Partridge release project and monitoring here has proved the benefits of creating species-rich grassland on the two fields and on 6-m margins all around the farm. Numbers of Grey Partridge are the highest on this farm than all but one other of the 13 research sites in the study.
Below - first spring (2004) after sowing: the field is covered with Hay Rattle and annual weeds such as Groundsel and Field Pansy. Most of the sown grassland flowers and grasses don't become apparent until the end of the summer. A few flowered this year, but most will take up to two years to reach flowering stage. Visitors at this stage were not impressed - and often did not appreciate that it takes several years for sown grassland to take shape.
Field at Buckham Hill: site of the last native wild flower grassland on the farm over 30 years ago. A steep west and south-facing 15-hectare field that is difficult to work. Sown in autumn 2004 with over 60 chalk grassland wild flowers, grasses and sedges. Establishment has been difficult here, and nowhere near as good as the other field (see above) owing to unusually dry weather between September 2005 and October 2004. There was also a huge flush of Sterile Brome, volunteer wheat and Black-grass which germinated in late October 2004. (The field was cropped with wheat the same summer, and double-disced.) With hindsight, a later sowing after a late autumn herbicide treatment, might have worked better. It might have also helped for the field to have been ploughed rather than disced, which would have helped to bury the annual grass seeds. In winter 2005-6 the field was sheep-grazed, which ought to reduce the undesirable annuals and help the sown species to become established. By Spring 2006, there was still a lot of Black-grass and Sterile Brome, although sown grasses appeared to have established reasonably well. However, wildflower establishment was still poor. For this reason the field was topped in early June and will be grazed in the summer, to provide the best opportunity in early autumn for sown wildflowers to establish. I will also be harvesting some Yellow Rattle off the first created field and will spread this across the field in autumn. The bottom of the field floods in the winter, and putting this field into grass should help to reduce runoff and flood-risk to the adjacent village of Great Shefford. Much of the rest of the valley remains in arable agriculture and is within an Environment Agency Priority Catchment (Kennet and Lambourn) where it is a priority to reduce soil erosion and winter runoff from farmland. Below: Buckham Hill
being sown Autumn 2004 and being grazed by sheep for the first
time
Marjoram (Origanum
vulgare)
Demonstration amenity meadow, Thatcham, Berkshire This site is a narrow strip of grassland (approximately
one acre/0.3 hectare) that was part of the adjacent allotments until
sown with clover and rye-grass in the 1990s. Since that time it has
been managed as short grassland, being regularly mown. Photo: part of the meadow in October 2004, showing strips that had been sprayed with weedkiller. These were sown with wild-harvested meadow seed.
Progress: In Spring 2005 some Yellow Rattle plants were seen, also a few plants of Meadow Saxifrage (which was not sown). The field was forage harvested (cuttings removed) in early July and then cut again in the autumn (cuttings were left).
SPRING 2006 ABOVE. Left: patches of Oxeye Daisy
established on sprayed and rotavated patches (early June) BELOW: Red clover, Meadow Buttercup, Yellow Rattle and Lesser Yellow Trefoil
The grass was cut in the second week of April (cuttings left) following a cold dry spring (there was little grass growth before April). In May and June a good variety of sown wildflowers and grasses were apparent in the treated areas including Red Clover, Meadow Buttercup, Common Sorrel, Oxeye Daisy, Common Mouse-ear, Smooth Brome, Crested Dog's-tail, Sweet Vernal-grass, Yellow Rattle and Ribwort Plantain. Lesser Yellow Trefoil and Common Vetch were also locally abundant - these were in the seed sown but might also have been present in the seed bank. Other later-flowering species such as Common Knapweed and Wild Carrot have also established. In time all the sown wild flowers and grasses ought to spread across the rest of the meadow. Later, I will collect some seed and scatter it in untreated areas after the site has been cut, and will also add more Yellow Rattle to areas where it wasn't originally sown. The Yellow Rattle will help to reduce the amount of grass and help the wildflowers to spread. See www.floralocale.org for details. Restoring wild flowers to Wallingford Castle Meadows, Oxfordshire
July 2005 has seen the first stage of restoring wild flowers to Wallingford Castle Meadows beside the River Thames. The meadows had been agriculturally improved, but are now under the stewardship of the Northmoor Trust and South Oxfordshire District Council, whose long term aim is to restore traditional hay meadow management and bring back wildflowers which used to flourish there. Seed harvesting was carried out from the local wildlife trust's Long Herdon Meadows. Northmoor Trust staff and volunteers then broadcast the seed (without prior cleaning) by hand over grassland that had been harrowed on the lower meadows. Wild flowers in the mixture included Greater Burnet, Yellow Rattle, Pepper Saxifrage and the scarce Meadow Thistle. |
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New native
grasslands
