The Meadow Makers' Network Forum

A couple of organic gardeners chat about native plants and garden wildlife. They research and summarise the subject for a particular episode - eg bees, or horse chestnut, or moor grass. They invite guests eg Dr Emma Sherlock of the Natural History Museum, who enthusiastically talks about worms in ep...

Grazing information - Cross refs = principles/practical experience/answers For the principles - This Website: Resources/Your Recommendations/pdfs/ and the MM video channel Conservation Grazing parts 1 and 2 available free on youtube lots of info for wet weather/dark evenings reading https://forum.mo...

Ecological succession - from bare ground to the same ground 2 years later - pioneer species, change of species. A simple explanation relevant to meadow makers. (Not a video but fits the topic.) Note: my laptop flagged this webpage as 'not secure', the info is from an old website of the Offwell Woodl...

Devil's bit scabious and purple loose strife Short, c. 5 minute, Irish videos covering ID, pollination, and briefly, traditional uses. Well worth watching for the details of the flower structure which you might not otherwise notice, and the glorious backgrounds. For me, the videos illustrate how ver...

It is really great to have an update from the original poster. When reading a topic, I always wonder what is decided in the end.
Thank you, Dave, and Please let us have more photos of the meadow's progress over the next few years.

Hi Jacqui. It sounds as if you are doing everything right as evidenced by your reward of a dense forest of rattle. Congratulations. I think you will see a huge difference over the next 3 - 5 years, when the former rattle patches are colonised by other plants. It can however all take A Lot of Time wh...

If anyone would like some fleabane seed or young plants, I have plenty. Just starting into flower now. Will be producing seed over the next 6 weeks. I could also spare a little devil's bit scabious seed (very precious!) - would be ready for picking in early Sept.

How lovely. I wish I lived near you at Totnes. I'd ask you to come for the sheer romance of it. It would be even better if you had a horse drawn machine to rake and collect the grass! Best of luck, I hope you find lots of takers.

Hello Luckymoor As you seem to be saying you feel you were late in April, to sow this year, I think you would find the post by Richard Lewis of 17 April 22 on this topic on this forum:= https://forum.moremeadows.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=861#p861 both relevant and useful for your circs. (Scroll down th...

Experimenting this year with partial pasture management as opposed to a haycut, on a wet meadow - 2 unshod large horses are eating about 6 acres from May to end July. I'm hoping that they will spare me many tedious hours of flail cutting and collecting on a small tractor, and I'm hoping that they wo...