Saturday 28 April 2018

The Old Vicarage- Wildflower Meadow

Didn't mean to be working this weekend, as it's one of the best local birding weekends of the year but the late spring has delayed a lot of work plans so spent today catching up and made a start on the plans for the wildflower meadow at the Old Vicarage. The ground was still too wet and soil too cloddy so need to let it dry out before can create a seed bed and sow the meadow. However myself, Iaon, Miki and Izzy did as much as we could today. 

 We got a lot of wild nettle areas (see here) on site so decided to attempt to turn some over to meadow. The area is rich is nutrients so need to rotovate and remove all aggressive weed roots. Will need to use some of the more hardy mixes for this kind of area- will be lucky if we can get a decent flower meadow in such conditions. 
 First step was to strim and remove all arisings 
 Then all large stumps removed with a stump grinder 
 Then rotovated and remove as many roots and organic material as possible.
 We then got it to this stage and treated with a herbicide to kill off all the existing weeds. Will still need to rotovate again to bring up as much as the sub soil as possible and then prepare the seed bed. 
 A Romanian style BBQ for lunch 
Izzy and another spring at the old vic 

More on the ongoing work at the Old Vic HERE

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