germinate until the spring, and the young plants need a full season’s growth before they are ready to flower.
Management is vital
Meadows were originally created by grazing and/or cutting, so you need to cut your flower meadow at least once a year. Use a scythe or a strimmer if possible, but if you have to use a mower make sure that the blades are not set too low.
Always leave the cut vegetation on the ground for a day or two to allow any seeds to fall, but then make sure you clear it all away because a good flower meadow depends on poor soil fertility.
If you are lucky enough to have a large meadow area, you can mow paths through it more frequently so that you can enjoy the flowers at close quarters.
An area of long grass can look untidy even if it is full of flowers, so it is a good plan to mow the edge to stop the grass from tumbling on to your path or drive. You might like to mow the area nearest to the house as well and allow it to merge gradually into the longer grass, much as a golf course fairway grades into the rough.
If you live in open countryside, you could even construct a ha-ha boundary (a sunken fence or ditch) so that your wild meadow appears to drift off into the surrounding fields.
MEADOW PLANTS
These native plants are suitable for you to plant in your wildlife meadow:
| • Bladder campion | • Cowslip |
| • Cuckoo flower* | • Field scabious |
| • Greater knapweed | • Ox-eye daisy |
| • Meadow cranesbill | • Ragged robin* |
| • Self heal | • Yarrow |
Plants marked * will thrive in damp areas.
The meadow cranesbill is one of the most beautiful of our grassland species. It does best on lime-rich soils, where its bright violet-blue flowers can be seen throughout the summer.
Most houses come complete with some sort of boundary feature – a hedge or a wall if you are lucky, but more often a relatively barren wooden fence. Although walls and fences can support a limited range of plant and animal life, a mature hedgerow is a thriving community, teeming with insects and other animals. At the same time it can give you privacy and protect your garden from the wind.
You could consider enriching your garden by replacing your fence with a hedge, but only if the neighbours agree! Alternatively, you could plant a low hedge inside your boundary or instal one as the garden equivalent of a room-divider – separating your vegetables from your flower beds perhaps. Hedges are very cheap to create, although they do need more maintenance than walls and fences.
Michael Chinery
The nests of caterpillars of the small eggar moth were once common on roadside hawthorn hedges, but mechanical trimming in summer has caused the species to become rare. Garden hedges may be its salvation.
Michael Chinery
Although it is very conspicuous when viewed on a bare twig, the 10cm (4in) caterpillar of the privet hawkmoth is surprisingly hard to spot in a privet hedge.
What to plant
Although exotic species may bear plenty of tasty berries for the birds, they do not support many insects (see here), so native shrubs are best. Hawthorn is good as it grows quickly, even from cuttings, and it is eaten by more than 150 insect species in Britain alone. Blackthorn, field maple, spindle, dogwood, buckthorn, alder buckthorn and guelder rose are also good. You can encourage honeysuckle, brambles and wild roses to scramble over the hedge. In fact, the more species you can incorporate, the better.
The animal residents
A hedge is both a home and larder for numerous garden animals.
Michael Chinery
Rolando Ugolini
The cultivated Prunus shrubs which make up this superb garden hedge are just as good for nesting birds as the wild shrubs.
