After a slow start everything is now looking very lush and the meadow flowers are blooming. June was the month to begin doing plant and bumblebee surveys and we hosted a number of in person trainings to assist people with this. All of the frenetic meadow activity culminated in two very successful events hosted in Titley and on the Bromyard Downs for National Meadows day on 3^rd July. There is still a bit of time before all the hay cutting begins to get out there and do your surveying and just to enjoy all your magnificent meadows. We will be busy in July harvesting seed from species rich sites across the county to be used as part of our Plantlife meadow maker project.

We are also excited to announce that  are starting a new, three year meadow restoration project. Working in collaboration with the Wye & Usk Foundation, Botanica and the World Wildlife Fund together we will restore a further 60ha of species rich grassland within the River Wye catchment.

Read on for further information on all this and more including another new funding opportunity, interesting training events and workshops and the Shropshire Hay Festival.

 

Upcoming events:

Saturday 24^th July – Shropshire Hay Meadow Festival

The Shropshire Hay Meadow Festival is back on Saturday 24^th July. It is a great, fun filled, family day out celebrating all the wonders of wildflower meadows. You can get your tickets here. Our Meadows Adviser, Rory Johnson, will be giving a short presentation on ‘Small Meadow Creation’ at 16:15 in the Talks tent.

 

Training Days at at FarmED

Cotswold Seeds have recently opened a new FarmED, food and education centre, on their 107 acre mixed farm in Oxfordshire. The aim is to provide a learning space to ‘inspire, educate and connect people to build sustainable farming and food systems that nourish people and regenerate the planet’.  You can find out about the wide range of training programmes being run here.

 

Catch up:

‘What’s all the buzz about – are all pollinator habitats equal?  with Dr Paul Cross

On 8th June, Dr Paul Cross, senior lecturer at the School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, gave a fascinating talk on some of the key challenges facing pollinators and the importance of species rich pastures and meadows being restored on a landscape scale to reverse these downward trends. The full webinar is available to watch again here.

 

Plant and Bumblebee ID training days