Summer meadow

February 2023

Redland Green's wildflower meadow, by the steps to Metford Road, started life a few years ago, but encountered a number of setbacks. In 2021, we effectively started again, reseeding it with a mix of different wildflower seeds.

Wildflower meadows are not mowed during the flowering period, but only when the wildflowers have set seed. Cuttings are removed shortly afterwards, in order that they don't rot down, adding nutrients to the soil. Wildflowers flourish in low nutrient soil, where competition with more vigorous competitors such as grasses is reduced.  The meadow should have been mowed last autumn; however, the weather was fairly consistently so poor that strimming at the conventional time wasn't possible.

Strimming finally took place in February, and the ropes around the meadow's perimeter were also replaced. The ropes are there so that the meadow doesn't accidentally get mowed by council contractors while it is flowering (as has happened in the past), and to protect the wildflowers later in the season from being trampled. And we hope that dog owners will not let their dogs leave unwanted deposits there. 

The cuttings from the meadow were put into the hedge along Metford Road allotments: they will rot down and provide nutrients to the hedge, and in the meantime, act as habitat for invertebrates.

At the same time, as the council contractors have not been managing the strips of grass beside the laid hedge along the allotments fence, quite a tangle of brambles were cut and, where possible, their roots removed.

The hedge itself, originally laid in the winter of 2019-20, will be laid again over the next winter. This means managing the new growth by trimming side branches and laying the newly grown trunks parallel to those closer to the ground. This will provide an increasingly dense hedge - which is good news for nesting birds, amongst others. After many years of sub-optimal management (by mechanical flailing), the traditionally laid hedgerow is approaching the point where it can do what all good hedgerows should do: be valuable habitat for all manner of native and wild creatures. In this extremely nature-depleted country, every little bit of extra habitat helps!