I have a comment on your meadow maintenance plan. You are correct in that removing 2 crops of hay every year is depleting the soil and the grasses won't grow as well. At a local golf course (links style) I was a member for 15 years and they cut the long fescue in the Fall every year and removed it with a chopper box. The grass WAS beautiful and grew to waist length and almost looked like wheat in later Summer sun. I encouraged them to burn it in early Winter to put nutrients back into the ground as I have helped on prairie burns before. After a burn the regrowth is spectacular and wild flowers really take off. They did not and over time the beautiful borders between fairways turned into an nasty weedy mess that now only grows to mid calf and is very wispy. Great pics!
Yes. They can be a real problem. But please don't remind me of the 3 feet long mice. So far I caught 45 plus one rat 5 feet long.
Thanks for asking. I love to share some ideas and maybe little knowledge. 21 years ago I brought an old girlfriend to this meadow a summer evening. It was magical. Bluebells al over. Her favorite flowers was bluebells and she hadn't seen so many in her entire life. 2014 when I bought the house from my past away grandparents the meadow looked like crap. I took a few pictures today from outside the fence line to give you an idea. A totally different meadow than I remembers. So I asked dad and my aunt about what granddad did. Neither of them knew. So I just started with my brushcutter. The worst part was this hill It was a mess to say the least. Another picture to give you an idea But to get back to the question. After a few years of chop and drop I realized it didn't get as beautiful as I wanted. So after a lots of googling and searching on YouTube I started to rake the hay away. That will remove the nitrogen from soil. The nitrogen loving tall growing species doesn't like that so the smaller species that don't need so much nitrogen will get a chance to get some light and starts to grow. The smaller species are most flowers and herbs. Back in the pre industrialized world many farmers harvest al the hay they could so we have alot of species that loves this poor soil. A big part of Sweden was meadow maintained like this until ww2. But now there is just around 100 small meadows maintained like this plus some peoples gardens. So the plants is dying. A meadow maintained like this is the most diversified in Sweden and close to the most diversified in the world. But it will take time. Last year I had grass that was as tall as me. And I'm 6 feet, 6. I was a bit angry. After al my hard work. But this year the meadow was almost as beautiful as it was. In Sweden we never had any traditions to burn the grass. So no species are adapted to that practice. Some people do it now a days and many species will grow there as well and be well diversified. I can't tell why the golf course isn't turning out this way but probably to much N-P-K on the fairway. O and by the way. For every new species of plant you get into the meadow you will attract 10 new species of animal. I ad a picture of the entire meadow from today
I mixed up the inches and feet in an earlier post. So I tried to be funny. Of course it was 5 inches.
A quick update. One more birch down Don't look to close to the hinge on this one. The back cut was 3 ince gap and the tree still didn't fall. So I saw in the hinge half an inch. This year I split it directly after fellnig the tree at the place it was. So I use an stump and a axe.
Did he have a goat or two ? A few generations back a few goats were common as a cow was/is more of commercial operation.
No goats. I know that great granddad grow oat there in the 1950s. Before he bought the place 1934 they had one cow here. I'm also told that there has been nutria/coypu and a fox breed that they called silver fox.
Today I worked a bit on the meadow. The last birch that I wanted down is down and cut. I got som help with the splitting My 8 year old son volunteered for the first time. He loved it and said he wants an axe for Christmas. And my supervisor had to make sure everything was in order So as soon as I'm ready splitting this tree I have three ashes that either are dead or dying. Two of them are rather big. And of course I will share a picture of the birch grove as soon the last tree is gone.
Will the bluebells come back with all the clearing you have done or do you have to replant wild flowers?
bluebells might get displaced by a more aggressive taller weed/plant. This could be indicative of the age of a meadow with bluebells persisting while the meadow is younger but succumbing/dying out when another species has been around long enough or the meadow gets to the age where it becomes dominant. That's just a WAG though as there can be a number of reasons for a species dying out. I've watched grey birch and pussy willow die out as they were pioneer species in a young field which has become a young forest. Trying to keep the birch or pussy willow around would be tantamount to freezing time and thwarting the evolution of a new forest. Their time came and went.
Chris from Sweden , that is some beautiful property! I so enjoy seeing someone take care of & restore things in a natural way, thank you for sharing.
Good point. Nothing is ever static. It would be neat though if they could come back. Up here, alder or scotch broom take over any vacant land so the only way to keep it cleared is to plant grass and keep it mowed.
They have started to come back. The idea is to not plant anything or put any seeds in the ground. It will come anyway.
The idea to remove the hay is so that the dominant Spices don't get the nutrients it needs so the less dominant has a chance. But the dominant was taking over between 1999 and 2014 when none did any maintenance. But my bluebells has started to come back.
Would you mind posting pictures next spring of the bluebells blooming in the meadow? I guess it will take awhile before there will be lots of them.
