Wealden Times | WT210 | August 2019 | Restoration & New Build supplement inside

Jane Howard’s
Fables from
the Farm
Jane tackles the challenge of
a wildflower meadow
The wild flower meadow has not only been looking
wonderful all summer but more than ever before it’s
been buzzing with bees, and birds and butterflies have all
taken advantage of the many different flowers and seeds on offer.
We made the meadow five years ago. It was a huge
project that involved turning back the clock and accepting
it would be less productive in terms of the amount of
grass it produced, but it has been worth every penny.
I don’t imagine you ever give it a second thought but the
fact is almost all the fields of grass you see round and about,
will in recent history have been ‘improved’. Over 97% of
original Wealden meadows which would
“Over 97% of
original Wealden
meadows have been
ploughed and sown
with high yielding
grasses, such as
perennial rye grass”
have supported about 50 different species
have been ploughed and sown with high
yielding grasses, such as perennial rye
grass, a fast growing, tough thug that
doesn’t let any others get a look in. This
kind of intensive grass production while
supporting more sheep and cattle leaves
little room for plant diversity or wildlife.
New wild flower meadows are called ‘semiimproved’
and it’s much harder to make one
than you might imagine. To get rid of the rye
grass we had to spray it off in the autumn
not one, not two but three times and then as though making
turf, a machine was brought in to slice and remove the top few
inches of rooty soil. This created a house size pile which we put
in the woods much to the delight of the pigs who thought we’d
built them their very own piggy Alton Towers. It was then left to
overwinter as a sad, bald patch of land. In February, seed from
a host of different species of clay-loving wild flowers and grasses
were sown and ever since it has been an annual riot of colour.
But it’s gang warfare out there and to prevent the bad
boy grasses, thistles and docks, from moving back in we
have to make every effort to keep the soil fertility low. And
one of the key heroes in this ongoing battle is yellow rattle,
a semi-parasitic annual plant that attaches
to the roots of the vigorous species and
takes nutrients, thus preventing them outcompeting
the gentler wildflower species.
Often known as the meadow maker it’s such
an important plant that it has a whole line-up
of regional names, including pots and pans, hen
pennies, tiddlibottles and shacklecaps. And while
on the subject of monikers there may be many
ways I didn’t get 10 out of 10 for my parenting
skills – no piano lessons, too busy to take them
to museums or make things with egg boxes and
sticky-back plastic – but I did teach my girls the
names of all the wild flowers they came across. And even if it
won’t feature on their CVs I remain immensely satisfied, maybe
if I’m honest a touch smug, that they can tell Jack in the Hedge
from Herb Robert and Ladies Bedstraw from Yellow Archangel.
Another way to keep the fertility down is to cut the meadow
every year for hay. In the other fields on the farm we cut hay
in late June and later spread muck taken from the cow sheds
the winter before. But the meadow gets left till late summer,
usually the end of August when all the seeds have dropped and
having been mown it gets not so much as a sniff of manure.
Talking of aromas it also produces the most delicious
smelling hay, a heady mixture of vaguely medicinal
Meadowsweet, mingling with the soporific scent of Ladies
Bedstraw (which was why it was used to stuff mattresses)
and the slightly vanilla scented sweet vernal grass.
And it’s not just the smell, evidently if you’re a cow
or sheep you really can taste the difference. Open a bale
of that on a cold wet February morning in the sheep
shed and it’s a race to get there first. Cue music and sexy
voice, “It’s not just any hay, it’s late-cut meadow hay”.
Follow Jane Howard – and the farm – on Instagram @coopersfarm
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