Hibernation zones

Some areas around the meadow and strips of hedge bottom are left for the later flowering summer flowers (the main wildflower meadow is a spring meadow so cut in late July). The flowers (such as ox-eye daisy, common agrimony, hemp agrimony, borage, mallow and feverfew) have set seed, so these areas have been cut with the trusty Allen Scythe.

The cuttings have been pitchforked on top of 2 year old wood piles in the Coppice. I am hoping that this will give a layered environment with damp rotten wood at the bottom, then a dry lattice of dead branches, finally topped off with the protective ‘roof’ of straw like cuttings:

This looks like it will create a great hibernation place - sheltered with a variety of environments.

Long post to catch up

Long time since the last post - so a number of things to catch up on:

First is the results of the experiment in overwintering the borage plants wither in the green house ot outside. The results are clear: Kept in the greenhouse - 100% dead. Kept outside - 80% alive. Lots of planting out has been done of seeds that have germinated after being in trays all winter - again it seems that the trays that were kept outside and brought into the greenhouse at the end of February did best. I wonder if the moisture content is key. The higher humidity in the green house over the winter may lead to seeds rotting (there seemed to be mould on the surface of some of the trays kept in the greenhouse).

The jury is still out on the experiment of planting snake's head fritillaries in individual trays. They germinated very well (both those in the greenhouse and those kept outside), producing single grass-like leaves. However these disappeared in the early summer, at about the same time that the mature plants in the field also loose their leaves. I am not sure if the plants in the trays died, or if they have formed bulbs which will come up again next year. I have kept the trays moist over the summer and will keep them well drained outside over the winter - so it will be interesting to see if they come up again in the spring.

The wildflower meadow was superb in the spring, however after it was cut it has remained yellow throughout the summer as the drought stopped any germination or growth. interesting to see how this will affect next spring. The hay rattle was abundant so we collected lots of seed and spread it around the field, especially in some of the areas where the grass is still quite vigorous.

The trees in the woodland have suffered through the drought, with a lot of premature leaf fall, especially from the rowan and silver birch. The rowan had lost nearly all of their leaves by the end of September, but produced a large crop of berries - which might itself be a sign that the tree is under stress.