Wild Flower Meadow
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The 'wild flower meadow' occupies a large proportion of the eastern section of the home garden, stretching from the untamed 'Wilderness' section by the road all the way to under the oak tree. Only East Bed and the beds at Black Pond lie between it and the eastern boundary. It is 600 m2 in area :
The meadow enjoys a lot of sun at the northern end but is quite shady at the southern end. The soil is essentially clay.
This is a classic example of a gardener's cheat : take a neglected lawn, mow a few paths through it and call it a 'meadow'. In autumn 2018 we strimmed the long grass areas back to the roots to weaken the grass and sowed some mixed wild flower seeds. Included in the mix was yellow rattle [Rhinanthus minor] which semi-parasitises grasses, giving other wild flowers a better chance. By May 2019 the yellow rattle was showing strongly but little else by way of wild flowers was appearing ... watch this space!
There is an old cooking apple tree at the far north of the meadow, next to the wilderness, and a medlar [Mespilus germanica] plus a Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum 'Kilimanjaro' have been planted elsewhere. It took three years to fully 'prune' [take off major branches!] the apple. In addition, when we took over in 2015 there was also a large clump of diseased stag's horn sumach [Rhus typhina] - no doubt suckers from a long-gone original - but we removed them in 2018. 2019 will require a lot of pulling up of suckers from the extensive root system but one will be permitted to survive.
The details of the planting can be found in the Wild Flower Meadow plant list and the context of this area within the garden can be found on the Plan and Areas page.
