The Emerging Meadow

This effects of this year’s cold wet May are still very evident.  Sometimes a difficult period suddenly disappears, as nature appears to catch up with itself, but sometimes the effects are longer lasting.  Looking out over the wildflower meadows at Sun Rising, it feels to me as if we are about two weeks later than we would otherwise expect – but at last the flowers are now coming into bloom.  The mass of buttercups has, for a little while, been here-and-there splashed with the pale pink of ragged robin, or the deeper pink of red campion, but now the oxeye daisies are starting to open.  Brilliant pink grass vetchling, rich red-to-yellow birdsfoot trefoil, and now the first of the field scabious.

Early Summer Flowers in Michael's Meadow

Early Summer Flowers in Michael’s Meadow

The more established areas of meadow have a greater ratio of grasses, while the newer meadows have more flowers.  In the photograph here, you can see the fat seedheads of meadow foxtail, tall in the foreground, a grass species that was barely seen in that area of meadow last summer.

A meadow is always changing, with a slightly different balance of plants making the most of the conditions of that particular year, finding root space in the soil, responding to sunlight and warmth.  It’s a balance that we are always aware of: the flowers may be more beautiful, but the grasses draw up more water from the soil, giving it a better overall structure.  We can alter it with harrowing and re-seeding, or weeding out specific species (such as thistles), but on the whole we just need to wait and watch.

Some may be aware of the very low number of butterflies around this year.  The same is true for moths.  Despite the ongoing decline in numbers, 2020 was a fairly good year – you’ll remember that we had a very warm dry spring and early summer.  This year, the reverse is true.  With a cold wet May, butterflies are only now starting to get going, and for some it will simply be too late.  With the meadow coming into flower, we hope very much that the butterflies will also start emerging, together with all the other invertebrates who are not only dependent on such places, but add another layer to nature’s precious and wonder-full beauty.