On Thursday 6th June Meadows Adviser, Rory Johnson gave a talk to a packed house in the old village hall for the annual Cradley WI open meeting. After giving an overview of who Herefordshire Meadows are and some of the things the charity gets up to, Rory then went on to explore how meadows have been an integral part of… Read more →
Tag Archive for meadow restoration
Improvements in species diversity at Herefordshire Meadows restoration sites.
Analysis of monitoring datasets 2019-2023 Over the last 5 years Herefordshire Meadows has been encouraging and assisting landowners to monitor the progress of their meadow restoration projects, via yearly botanical surveys, beginning with a baseline survey pre-restoration. The simple Rapid Assessment Monitoring method is used, where species are recoded at regular stops whilst walking a zig-zag route through the restoration… Read more →
Updated Meadow Monitoring survey sheets for 2024!
For 2024 we have introduced a slightly amended Rapid Monitoring recording sheet which we hope will assist the new tranche of meadow makers coming in under the Kingspan and other projects, as well as helping previous restoration site owners carrying out their annual monitoring surveys. Download the pdf survey sheet HERE or the Excel file HERE and visit our Survey… Read more →
September Newsletter
All of this year’s meadow seed harvest had been dried, cleaned, weighed and distributed by the end of August, and at the start of September we began the exciting next stage of our restoration projects: to prepare the sites and begin spreading seed. We also hosted our first FORUM since 2020 and our first AGM since becoming a registered charity. … Read more →
Plant ID & Meadow Monitoring Training Day
On Tuesday 6th June meadow owners from across Herefordshire attended a Plant Identification training day at The Leen Farm, Pembridge. The day was led by County Botanical Recorder and Herefordshire Meadows Trustee Stuart Hedley, who introduced the group to the Rapid Plant Monitoring Method, a simple technique for monitoring changes in grassland over time. The session was aimed at equipping… Read more →
Evening Meadow Walk with Herefordshire Meadows FULLY BOOKED WAITING LIST ONLY
Guided walk through the meadows at Far House Farm, a chance to see them at their mid-summer best and learn about their management. Kindly hosted by Joanna & Bruce Jenkyn Jones Booking through Herefordshire Rural Hub bookings@herefordshireruralhub.co.uk Joining instructions will be sent after booking. Read more →
Seedling Safari and Winter Management practices for recently restored swards
A very big thank you to Malcolm and Ann Russell who hosted this year’s seedling safari and winter meadow management training day at Westfield Steading on a misty late November day. Malcolm and Ann have restored 1.5ha of species poor grassland as part of the Airwick – WWF-UK project using brush harvested seed from two local donor sites. After an… Read more →
Herefordshire Meadows November Newsletter
This years meadow makers have been busy creating new wildflower meadows throughout September and October as part of the Botanica project. Brush harvested seed was spread across 22 hectares and 2.5 hectares will be enhanced with plug planting Many thanks to all who helped with this work including many volunteer seed strewers. New techniques are emerging all the time with… Read more →
Herefordshire Meadows October Newsletter
Since the last newsletter, this year’s Meadow Makers have been busy restoring meadows supported by the Herefordshire Meadows team. Local provenance seed has been harvested from flower rich donor sites, sieved and dried and spread on recipient sites. Restoration works are completed on about 80% of our Meadow Maker sites and remaining sites are scheduled for the coming weeks. We… Read more →
Catch up: Principles of Creating Flower Rich Meadows
Caroline Hanks, Rory Johnson and Sue Holland discussed the basics of restoring land to a wildflower meadow. For those interested in meadow making or already involved in the process, the talk explained the key steps. This included how to prepare the land for seeding, where to source wildflower seeds and when to introduce grazing stock. A range of equipment and… Read more →