Management
Physical Work Carried out on the Meadow
|
|
|
|
|
Purchase of this lightweight wheeled rotary mower with collector box in spring 2006 made cutting the short areas much easier. Why did I struggle with a hover mower for so long? |
Started in 2005, the lawn was allowed to grow
without mowing. Several small areas of no more than a couple of feet wide were
cut using hand shears during spring and early summer where there was a
noticeably strong growth of grass. I cut down the whole area with Stihl FS280
metal-bladed scrub cutter in early July. After raking I mowed the turf even
lower using a Flymo Turbo Lite 330 on lowest setting and again raked up all
cuttings. The management strategy was aimed at removing the maximum amount of
nutrients from the meadow, removing dead plant material and reducing the vigour
of the over-dominant grasses by cutting them down when they were at peak
growth. The area looked dead and quite bare after this. A period of dry weather
did not help. I mowed the area again in September, raking away all the cuttings
then mowed the lawn again in a dry spell in November. I did not mow in October
because many mushrooms were growing in the meadow. Through the winter and early
spring the area looked like any other lawn in the estate.
Cutting the meadow and
dealing with the cut material was the hardest part of the work. It was amazing
how much vegetation such a small area generated. I could have chosen to cut the
area with a hand sickle, used the lawn mower on its highest setting or even
paid a gardener to do the work. However, I am used to using scrub cutters at
work so was happy to use this method. Cutting took me 20 minutes and the raking
up a few days later took an hour. I composted the cuttings in two plastic bins
and spread the compost the following spring on my vegetable plot, a place where
I wanted to maximise the soil nutrients! I could have chosen to take the
material to the local tip, which handles garden material and converts it into
compost.
It is worth emphasising that
this was a rather ruthless management regime, which cut many plants down in
their prime and turned my wildlife haven into a barren landscape in an instant.
I decided to bite the bullet and manage in this way to remove the maximum
amount of plant material from the meadow. As the soil nutrient level drops and
the plant growth declines over the next few years, I will leave the cut later
and later. I consider this harsh measure as necessary for the good of the meadow in the long term, being cruel to be kind!
More wildlife friendly maintenance management will follow in the years to come
with cuts left until September or October.
During the growing season, I
cut a metre wide strip round the margin of the meadow with a lawnmower once
every 2 or 3 weeks. Like putting a picture in a frame, this was to show off the
meadow and demonstrate that it was a managed feature rather than a lawn that
had been left to neglect. In 2005 I used the Flymo Turbo Lite 330, raking the
cuttings and removed them. In 2006 I purchased a Qualcast Easi-Trak 320 wheeled
electric rotary lawn mower with grass collector box. This allowed more
efficient picking up of cut grass. Its purchase was a revelation to my
gardening, why had I struggled so long with the hover mower?
Some plants grew that I did
not want in my meadow. About 20 Prickly Sow-thistles, an annual species of
disturbed ground popped up. These I let grow until they began to flower then
pulled them up. They had done a job for me by using up nutrients in the soil. I
do not have any objection to the selective use of appropriate herbicides in the
countryside by skilled individuals. At Kenfig the careful use of Roundup
Pro-biactive has been very effective in controlling the dreaded sea buckthorn,
one of the biggest biological threats to the sand dune ecosystem. However, I
did not use any chemicals on my meadow as I could deal with ‘problem species’
by hand.
|
|
|
Removal of this Prickly Sow-thistle on 25 May
2006 helped remove nutrients from the soil |
For mowing the meadow in
2006, I tried using the Qualcast mower. I was amazed with how well the little
lightweight machine coped with the long thick vegetation. I was very careful
not to damage the machine by setting the cutting height to maximum and working
slowly and steadily from the edge of the meadow coaxing the mower into the long
grass not shoving it. I then set the cutting height to the lowest setting and
cut over the area again to remove the thick brown thatch that had built up. A
lot of trips to the compost bins with the mower’s collector box were necessary
but I still felt the task was fairly efficient. Prior to mowing I collected
seeds from yellow rattle, oxeye daisy, corncockle, cowslip, bird’s-foot trefoil
and kidney vetch ready to sow back after the mowing had finished. Otherwise
most of my valuable wildflower seeds would have ended up in the compost heap
with the meadow cuttings. Seed heads from some plants such as corncockle were
not ripe yet so I cut the whole plant stem and put them in a vase of water to
allow the seeds to slowly ripen.
|
|
|
Time to ‘bite the bullet’ and cut down the meadow on 14 July 2006. The little mower easily dealt with the long grass although a lot of trips with the collector box to my compost bins were necessary. |
