Things That Help Us Make the Right Decisions About Our Meadow

The term meadow refers to a place which is more or less open to the sky, has a flat surface and is generally covered in plants that do not get very tall. In this country this is not a natural surface but it has proved ideal over the years for agricultural activities like the growing of harvestable crops and grazing by domesticated animals. The types of plants that have been encouraged are those that grow resiliently after cropping. Some of these are grown as perennial crops meaning that they come up year after year without needing to be re-seeded. Others have to be re-sown to produce a crop.

If cattle are on the ground for a long period of time they graze the plants and the only sorts of plants that can survive this are generally in the grass family. The new shoots vital for regeneration after grazing lie at the very bottom of the upright stems and in side-growths called rhizhomes that run along or just below the surface of the ground. The best plants for feeding cattle re-generate quickly so as to provide and ongoing food source.

Over the years man has carried out research to find out which natural species regenerate most effectively and he has crossed species to make what are called cultivars. These are not natural but they can offer characteristics deemed beneficial. It is the same process applied to wild roses so as to bring us the garden forms often preferred. One of the side effects of introducing these plants is that they easily out-compete more natural species. Another result of the genetic manipulation is that they may be sterile.

Intense farming sometimes employs another technique designed to reduce the incidence of the plants less suitable for heavy grazing and this is selective spraying with herbicides.
The presence of the more vigorous and substantial plants in an environment populated by many grazing creatures means that natural regeneration is very difficult.

Our aim on the Millennium Green is to introduce as many different sorts of plants as possible and for them to be natural to the area.

By natural we mean plants that might have been growing around here many thousands of years ago. The proper term is indigenous. The term for the range of variation is bio-diversity.

Once this wide range of plants is in place another exciting opportunity is resurrected. Many of the plants we seek to re-introduce have more complicated flowers than the grasses. The flowers of grasses do not have petals (apetalus) because they spread their pollen on the wind. The petals would simply get in the way.

Some of the trees we have on the meadow use the same device, releasing their pollen before the leaves have grown and got in the way. The pollen and wind blown seeds are very small so the more intensive is the area they fall into the less chance they have of germinating and growing.

If one establishes pilot planting of these wind-pollinated and wind-dispersed seeds their increase in numbers can happen quite quickly, so long as the earth is free from competition. Many of the plants that survive on very thin soils have wind-blown pollen and sees that are small and not terribly demanding of nutrient in he substrate.

Many other plants have seeds that are quite bulky so they tend not to disperse themselves far. Some may stick to the legs of birds and other creatures but the rate of colonisation of new areas is slow.

Our intention is to plant bold groups of various species and this will encourage the various creatures that help spread them. These are called the vectors.

Firstly the plants need pollinating and many insects are designed to do this on particular plants. They fly from one plant to another so it is important to have a generous number of them and connected so the creatures can move in safety.

Having a greater number of plants also strengthens the gene pool so the resultant seeds are more capable of adapting to varying habitats. This natural state has not been in place for hundreds of years on our meadow so the wildflower planting strategy is to reverse the weakness as soon as possible by planting lots of many species and allowing as many as possible to be pollinated and then go on to set and disperse their seeds.

With the wide range of variation we see a wide range of flower colours all attracting differently coloured insects. The presence of these insects in a wide range of variation will attract a wider range of birds.

By artificially enriching the planting we can make things happen in a few years that might take a hundred years.

– Graham Burgess