Hope for the Lappinch

Somewhat later than planned, we finally managed to overseed the small meadow at the front of our farm with a specially chosen wildflower seed mix. 

Being about an acre in total, the space was too large to prepare by hand so we needed to await a big tractor and proper farming equipment to break up, but not completely destroy, the existing sward.  Thankfully, despite the recent wet weather, the ground remained sufficiently dry that the tractor did not get bogged and we just about managed to avoid creating a porridge of mud and chopped up grass.  

In contrast with the new meadow we are seeking to establish around our ponds, where we chose to spray off everything to create a clean sward – (not entirely successfully it must be said), for this meadow we wanted to try a different approach that involved sowing new wildflower seed directly into the existing sward.  

Ideally, we should have got on and done this in the autumn but somehow time just ran away from us.  In any event, after a Sunday afternoon spent hand-sowing, our wildflower seeds are now in the ground where they will wait out the winter before, hopefully, bursting to life as the weather warms up in the spring.   As it happens, we know a number of the wildflower seeds we have used, notably yellow rattle, actually require a period of cold weather to break their dormancy, so the freezing weather we are currently enduring should prove helpful. 

While there is always a good degree of uncertainty around any new meadow establishment, in this case, and unlike around our new ponds, we are quietly confident.  Importantly, we know the soil fertility is low (see post of February 2022).  Together with the parasitic nature of the yellow rattle we have sown as part of our seed mix, this should help our new wildflowers get established in the newly broken-up sward and avoid being overwhelmed by grass that would otherwise tend to dominate on our damp clay soils.  That is the theory at least – it is now all down to the vagaries of nature and the weather. We will report on progress in the spring!