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Have you received your packet of Mini Meadow Wildflower Seeds? (Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has hundreds to give away!) And have you planted them yet? There are detailed planting instructions on the pack. But there is nothing about mowing your ‘meadow’, which is an important factor in getting a successful and continuing wildflower meadow. In the midst of discussing with others how to tackle this, I came across an article in the spring edition of Plant Life, the magazine of the conservation charity Plantlife. The gist of what we should all be doing is –
Once you have a meadow with some grass and flowers, the absolute key to maintaining it is by mowing. The basic yearly pattern is to cut the grass hard in summer, any time from July to September. Remove all the cuttings and then keep the grass mown down hard, removing the clippings each time, until around Christmas. Then leave the meadow alone and enjoy a riot of flowers until the following summer. This simple cycle mimics the traditional pattern of hay-cutting followed by grazing to which many meadow flowers are adapted.
So now we can sit back and wait for the flowers to bring in the butterflies, bees and birds. Good luck!
[Thanks to Dr Trevor Dines of Plantlife Cymru.]