Back in May 2020, I wrote a blog post here about planting our wildflower meadow in our apple orchard. I promised an update - and here it is after three long and quite eventful years (involving a global pandemic, opening our holiday cottage business and a new baby!).
After backbreaking mowing, strimming and raking, I planted a native perennial wildflower mix, along with an annual mix for some first-year colour. Well, the results were mixed, but it does seem to be getting better year on year, so I believe patience is a virtue in the wildflower game!
The first year, to my disappointment, precisely zero annual wildflowers appeared. I was very excited about my colourful poppies and cornflowers, but not a bright nodding flower head to be seen come summer time! However, the next year, we did get a big drift of Yellow Rattle. And this is apparently a Good Thing - Yellow Rattle, as well as being quite pretty as far as perennial wildflowers go, is very useful as it weakens the grass and makes more space for other flowers to settle in.
A few years of mostly Yellow Rattle (punctuated by unfortunate sheep incidents which not only ate my new plum trees, but also fertilised the ground with their poo which wildflowers hate!), was finally followed this year by new flowers popping up. I'm not sure we are quite at the 29 species promised by the seed company, but it seems the biodiversity is increasing and it is beautiful to see. The place is alive with insects of all kinds and I also spotted a Common Lizard basking on a rock!
Here are a few of our new flowers in the morning sunshine this August - and hopefully next year we will have even more. I had hoped to take a few more photos, but unfortunately as a consequence of the thriving insect population, a pesky horsefly had set its sights on me and I had to flee!
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