More grass cutting and planting

It’s certainly time for the summer flowering areas around the wildflower meadow to be cut short so that the seeds have the light and air to germinate. This is being done later than ideal - it would be better to have more time for seedlings to develop before the colder weather starts. Ideally the end of August would have been better than the end of September.

For a good article on the difference between spring meadow and summer meadow cutting regimes see https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/discover/in-your-garden/article/124

The main meadow and woodland glade are being developed as a spring meadow - so they grow through the spring and early summer, are cut for hay in late July and the are continually cut short through the late summer and autumn. This give a good opportunity for early spring flowers.

The hedgerow bottoms shown here are cut on a summer meadow cycle - being cut in late September and then kept short in the first couple of months in the spring. Not cut from May onwards, then cut again late September.

The trusty front bar cutting mower (Allen Scythe) is ideal for cutting this long, coarse grass.

Cuttings are raked up an taken off into a grass heap to rot or used as a ‘roof’ on the branch piles in the wood to create a sheltered environment for over-wintering insects.

Summer visitors depart

Have not seen the swallows for a few days now so I think that they have migrated south. They lined up on the wires last weekend. I think this is two pairs, each with two young.

This year we have only had two nests and maybe four young fledged. This is a big change from 15 years ago when we had 5 or 6 nests each with sometimes two broods in a year. It may just be local variation, but I worry that the declining insect numbers are to blame. The Insect Armageddon is plain to see every time I look at the clean car windscreen after a summer drive. It did not used to be this way, widespread use of pesticides in farming is the most likely cause. Our wildflower meadow is just not large enough to mitigate the effects of the surrounding industrial farmlands. For the last two springs our masonry bee hives have died off overnight the day the surrounding field was sprayed, probably as the bees range over a larger area than just the wildflower meadow.

It is amazing to think that these swallows will be in Southern Africa in 4 weeks time. Not a bad place to spend the winter!

Meadow cutting

Keeping the grass short after the July hay cut is important to let light and air down to the wildflower seeds. Having failed to harrow the meadow this year I am not sure that the seeds dropped during haymaking have made the best contact with the earth, so long grass is definitely worth avoiding.

The grass had got to about 8 to 10 cm, so using the highest setting on a ride-on mower brought it down to about 4cm.

I tried to cut around the meadow cranesbill which is growing strongly, am not sure if this is right, but I worry that repeated cutting when it is using up so much energy will weaken the plants for the winter. However leaving uncut areas around the cranesbill gives a very ‘patchy’ look to the meadow.

I like this, as it gives variety of habitat rather than on uniform environment. One of my main objectives on a small piece of land is to maximise diversity of habitat, even if it leaves the field looking a bit odd.

We have maybe grown so accustom to the uniform farmed fields of monocrops that are so sterile for wildlife that seeing a ‘patchy’ field looks odd.

I may have to do another cut in about 3 or 4 weeks time. I wish that there was some way of picking up the cuttings to take more nutrients out of the ground, but the mower becomes full quickly that this is just not practical.