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News
Species-Rich Grassland Project in the Wye Valley National Landscape
Over the last few months Herefordshire Meadows have been delivering a project aimed at identifying, surveying and mapping some of the best species-rich meadows in the Wye Valley National Landscape, with funding from the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) Programme, administered by the WVNL on behalf of DEFRA. This summer we have surveyed grassland at 15 land holdings where there… Read more →
Seed Harvesting 2024 update
Over 6 days in late July, the Herefordshire Meadows seed harvesting team visited 6 very special meadows to spend a day collecting, sifting, sorting, weighing and distributing a total of 500kg of seed-rich mix, which this autumn will be used to restore around 27ha of grassland at 13 land holdings. Many of this year’s restoration sites are in North Herefordshire,… Read more →
Spring 2024 Big Give campaign update
Earlier this year you helped us to raise over £14,000 during our ‘For the Love of Meadows in Herefordshire’ campaign, hosted by Big Give. Thanks to your generosity, and to Big Give for match-funding your donations, we have been able to spend the last few months delivering events and training aimed at inspiring better understanding, management and preservation of meadows… Read more →
Evening Meadow Walk at Mowley Valley
On Wednesday 7th August, we hosted our fifth and final summer evening meadow walk of the season at the magnificent Mowley Valley in North West Herefordshire. The valley is currently managed as a large scale habitat mosaic consisting of species rich grasslands, semi-natural ancient woodland, scrapes and rough edges and all dissected by the River Arrow. The focus of the… Read more →
Diverse swards: grassland management for soil, biodiversity and profit
On Wednesday evening, Herefordshire Meadows hosted a joint event with Pasture for Life, delving into the myriad benefits of diverse swards in productive farming systems. The event was held at Upper Pengethley Farm, kindly hosted by the Partridge family. Previously a mixed farm, the 260 acre parcel has made the change from arable to herbal leys, permanent pasture, and native… Read more →
National Meadows Day walk on 6th July
On National Meadows Day on 6th July, the rain passed SW Herefordshire just in time for us to have a great view from Urishay across the Golden Valley on our visit to Tom and Catherine Oliver at Urishay Court. Thanks to them for hosting us and to neighbouring farmer, David Morgan, who joined us to talk about the challenges of… Read more →
PHI Survey and Plant ID Training day 12th June 2024
On Wednesday 12th June landowners, meadow makers and volunteers attended a training day with Herefordshire Meadows, to learn how to identify key meadow plants and carry out a grassland survey. Training took place on the fantastic Meadows at Hurstans, Soller’s Hope – where owner Fiona Fyshe manages species-rich grassland that was enhanced with seed from Joan’s Hill Farm, as part… Read more →
Evening Meadow Walk at Bythan
On Monday 24th June, the weather finally delivered for our first evening meadow walk of the year. The event was kindly hosted by Hilary Hillier at Bythan, Avenbury, who has been restoring grassland for 20 years using a variety of methods including green hay, local provenance seed and plug planting with great success. One of the fields visited during the… Read more →
Farm Walk with Herefordshire IAgSA
On June 13th, Meadows Adviser Rory Johnson led a farm walk with the Herefordshire branch of the IAgSA at Upper Pengethley Farm near Peterstow. The walk included a visit to some hay meadows which were enhanced in 2023 as part of Herefordshire Meadow’s Botanica project using seed from Joan’s Hill Meadow, the county coronation meadow. After going through the restoration… Read more →