Make hay while the sun shines
We’ve been supporting the creation of native wildflower meadows
Behind the scenes, our Conservation Officer Jack Gradidge has been busy supporting the creation of native wildflower meadows!
When you think of a wildflower meadow, you probably think of hot summer days, flowers bursting with colour, insects buzzing and jumping over your feet and swallows gliding just centimetres from the top of tall stems. Sadly, this image of our countryside has become increasingly rare, with a startling 97% of traditional meadows lost since the 1930’s!
Thankfully, lots of local grasslands are being restored to their former glory. For the last five years, we’ve been working to improve the variety of plants on our own grasslands, with the help of our lovely local neighbours.
Meadows still require management – in fact, the variety of plants wouldn’t exist without it. Removing the grass from the field reduces nutrients in the soil; which native flowers prefer. The cut hay is also a much-needed food supply to our animals over the cold winter months. We cut the meadows late in the season to allow insects to complete their life cycles and for flowers to drop their seeds.
So, why is a meadow with lots of different plants important? Well, it’s a great food source; a three-acre diverse meadow can produce 6kg of nectar! That’s enough to feed half a million bees! Lots of insects are also very picky about which plants they eat, so by having more variety we attract more types of insects. The caterpillar of the beautiful common blue butterfly prefers to munch on the leaves of a flower called ‘common birds-foot trefoil’. Without these plants, the common blue would quite simply struggle to exist.
We’ve recently carried out our annual hay cuts and this year we did things slightly differently. Instead of collecting all the hay to be fed to the animals, we have used some for ‘green hay’. Green hay is a method of spreading wildflower seed by collecting it from a field that contains more variety of plants and moving it to a recipient field. Once a recipient field is cut and cleared, we spread the green hay across it, allowing seeds to drop down to the soil. Last year, we spread green hay across our small meadow at the Holiday Park. It was a great success, and we’ve seen patches of flowers including yellow rattle, wild carrot and knapweed flourishing this season.
We’re grateful to be working in close partnership with local nature-loving neighbours to bring more floral variety to our fields and we look forward to observing the results.
You can explore some of our meadows for yourself. At the attraction, you can find Big Broom Meadow next to the zoo, in late summer this meadow is a sea of yellow birds-foot trefoil. If you’re staying with us at the Holiday Park, take a wander around the winding paths of the meadow area above the lodges.