It’s been 8 weeks since I seeded the meadow.
It’s making steady progress, in patches. Despite my careful measuring out of the seed and the area itself, some parts are very dense and there are patches that are bare.
I wrote about the preparation in May Madness, Mayhem and Wildflower Meadows.May Madness, Mayhem and Wildflower Meadows.
I’ve been giving it a helping hand whilst the weather has been so dry and hot as it gets full sun for most of the day. I watered it every other evening and cut down to every third. I know, natural wildflower meadows have to survive no matter what, but I was late seeding this meadow and I’m encouraging a few flowers to appear before autumn.
It will have to survive as nature intended now though as a hosepipe ban will be enforced in just over a week.
The Jackdaws have had no respect for the fledgling meadow. They learnt how to balance on the bird feeder quite a while ago. Their technique is to take turns in flying at it, bashing their beaks into the openings for as long as they can hold on whilst the others grab the seed that has fallen. The squabbling and scrabbling that ensues means bare, trampled patches under the feeder.
It also means we have a few random sunflowers throughout the meadow! I spent ages on the internet carefully looking up the flowers listed on the wildflower meadow seed packet, to see what these tall, fast growing flowers were (I’ll put the pictures of my research up on my next post). Nothing matched! I was puzzled. Then Roger said, “They look like sunflowers to me”. Of course!!!
Anyway…progress pictures…at 5 weeks after seeding…
The weekend just gone was the 8 week seeding anniversary…there’s plenty of Ribwort, one buttercup and some poppies about to pop..
