Planting up the mini-meadow

Perfect planting weather yesterday, AND I HAD TIME TO DO IT! Time therefore to put the meadow to bed for the winter.

We had rain overnight, dry during the day and, rejoice, rain the night after. Just what the gardener ordered. It was 2 weeks since I cut the hay, and there had been a fair bit of regrowth so I could spot and avoid cherished plants.

This year I have grown three species from seed. This was my second attempt at all three having failed to get any germination in my previous attempts. I actually tried six species this year and only got any germination from these three, but that’s not too bad considering. Here’s Quaking Grass.

I was delighted at how robust these plants had become over the summer. My clay soil is probably not perfect for them (they are normally commoner on dry soils on lime), but we’ll see. I have a soft spot for this species and at least wanted to test it out: lovely delicate flower heads to look forward to next year. The next species was agrimony.

Again, this is commoner on dry soils on lime (see here with quaking grass at Ellerburn Bank) but I have seen it in wetter areas too. I think it’ll do OK here. The last species has been a real struggle to get through the summer, and paradoxically should do best here: Ladies’ Smock or Cuckoo Flower.

You can see that they have probably looked in better shape, but underneath there is a pretty good root stock. First the seedlings got waterlogged, which they shouldn’t have minded being a wet meadow plant, but did! Then they got attacked by aphids. And finally small white caterpillars left a trail of destruction. But I’m sure they’ll bounce back and give us a good show next spring. In a way it’s good to know that they support a lot of animal life!

So then there was two hours of hard labour chopping holes in turf, whilst trying to avoid digging up previous year’s plantings. The end product looks rather comical as usual.