Back in June 2021, a biodiversity survey of the park orchard meadows was carried out for us by Neil Anderson. Since then the meadows have largely been left alone, with no added nutrients and only a minimum of “weeding”. Time I thought to see what changes of three years of being left mostly to their own devices might have induced. Neil very kindly agree to repeat his survey for us and the results are included below.
I also attach Neil’s notes below
I spent an hour or so looking at the beds this morning. I did find 3 vegetative Eremurus, but certainly not going to flower this year. A few shrub/tree small saplings- Field Maple, Wild Cherry, willow, Buddleja & a single Cotoneaster. Quite a few Gladiolus shoots, but the only Allium I noticed was the weedy Crow Garlic. Plants like Marjoram are doing very well. A few obvious garden plants like the large yellow-flowered Achillea, Eryngium planum (was great for pollinators & noticed a couple Bee Wolf on the flowers last summer- a formerly rare wasp which is increasing) & Rose Campion, the latter probably seeding around a bit. Generally a good mix with just a small number of potential thugs such as Nettle (along one edge), Broad-leaved Dock, Creeping Thistle & one large clump of Goat’s-rue on one corner.. Given none of it was flowering I didn’t attempt to identify any of the grasses, but certainly Cocksfoot & Yorkshire Fog amongst them. Away from here a lovely display of Cuckoo Flower in the wetlands meadow.
Whilst these two surveys cannot compare to those carried out for a period of 30+ years at PinkHill Meadows, it does nicely illustrate what nature can do without our help!