Hope for the Lappinch

With spring firmly upon us, we spent a sunny Saturday morning preparing the ground for wildflowers around the two new ponds we created over the winter. 

As anyone who has established a new meadow will know, careful ground preparation is key to success.  Excessive soil fertility and the pernicious weeds that often accompany it are the enemies of successful new wildflower meadow creation.  Not spending sufficient time dealing with both upfront will likely lead to failure and disappointment in future.

In this regard, the soil conditions around our two new ponds provide the basis for a fascinating experiment.   Referencing the bottom-most of the photos above, the nearest pond was created from what was left of an existing pond that, over the years, had become a dumping ground for all manner of farm waste – tyres, old radiators, tree stumps, barbed wire, silage bags and the like. 

With the help of our contractor, the wonderful Wilf, we removed the worst of this, with the remaining sludge and sediment that was also dug out being spread around the boundary of our newly refreshed pond.   Our expectation is that this excavated pond sludge will prove highly fertile and a hotbed for docks, nettles and thistles – something that the eagle-eyed amongst you will spot are already growing vigorously around the pond margin.  The emerging blooms of green algae around the pond edge again point to excessive fertility, this time in the water itself.  

The more distant pond in the top right photo is a rather different story, having been freshly dug through the topsoil and directly into the thick underlying clay, that was also then spread around the edge of the pond from whence it came.   We suspect this subsoil is much less fertile and the absence of weeds and algal blooms seems to confirm as much. 

So what next?  

First, horror of horrors, several weeks ago, we carefully treated both pond surrounds with a broad spectrum herbicide (more of which later). 

Second, with the worst of the first flush of docks, nettles and thistles successfully sprayed off, we spent last weekend putting our newly acquired chain harrow to work to create something resembling a seed bed.  However, we are not yet at the point of sowing our wildflower seeds.  Instead, we are now hoping for rain and warm weather to bring forth the inevitable next flush of weeds, which we intend to spray off once more, before again cultivating the soil with the chain harrow.   Only then, and only if we have favourable warm, wet planting conditions, will we consider sowing our wildflower seeds – by hand to be followed by a good treading in to ensure good soil to seed contact (learning the lessons of our failed field margin – see post of 13 March 2022). 

In practice, I suspect we will still end up fighting a protracted battle around the re-established pond – the soil and pond sediment is probably just too fertile and the weed burden just too great.  However, if you don’t try you will never know and we hope that over time, with progressive hay cuts and selective weed control, we might just succeed in creating something worthwhile. 

We are much more confident of success around our second pond where the infertile clay subsoil and the absence of an existing weed burden should provide much more favourable conditions.   Still, in nature, things seldom turn out quite as one might expect and we are fully prepared to be surprised – albeit it will probably be next summer before we get a real sense of whether our expectations are correct.  

Which brings us back to the use of herbicides to establish a new wildflower meadow at all – a judgement call that we know some will recoil at. 

We are aware of the health and environmental concerns around the widespread use of glyphosate.  To be fair, there are also alternatives in the context of wildflower meadow establishment: repeated cultivation; wholesale top soil removal and covering the ground with black sheeting by way of example. 

Quite simply however, we just don’t have the time or the money to adopt these approaches at the scale, or within the timeframe needed to be effective in our circumstances.  Further, having seen how vibrant and alive the new meadow we established at our previous home was (see our post of 17 February 2022), which was also created from scratch with the use of herbicides, we think the costs and risks are worth it for the incredible environmental benefits that we know a successfully established wildflower meadow can quickly deliver.

As an alternative, we could of course simply leave the bare ground alone to be recolonised by whatever nature decides – most likely docks, nettles and thistles at first, to be followed by brambles and scrub and, ultimately, long after we have departed and if we keep the cows out, probably native woodland – a rewilding in miniature.  However, we already have some of each of the stages of this habitat on the farm and it’s not really what we or our immediate environment are lacking.  It is traditional wildflower meadows and the insects, birds and reptiles that call them home that are scarce with us, and indeed nationally.  Accordingly, it is this all too rare habitat we have decided to give priority to.

Ultimately, much of conservation is about hard choices and prioritisation in world where time and money are finite.  This is our choice in light of real, first-hand experience, and one we are comfortable is right for us and our environmental objectives on the farm given the circumstances we face.   Let’s hope nature agrees!