Putting your meadow to bed for the winter!
It’s often thought that encouraging wildlife into churchyards or cemeteries is a case of leaving them to go wild and stopping management. Actually, this is not the case. Many of the species and habitats found in burial grounds have been present for the decades or even centuries that this special place has been cared for. These plants, animals, birds and fungi will have been widespread in the farmed landscape of the past. If you want to maintain or increase wildlife in your local churchyard or cemetery then the best thing to do is to continue this traditional work rather than making a big change and leaving things unmanaged. Most churchyards are a mix of grassland with individual trees or groups of trees which can be thought of as small woodlands. There may well be some patches of scrub as well. It is the grassland that needs regular management if it is not to change its character and we can look to the history of churchyards for clues on how to do this.
We know that churchyards were kept open and accessible as they were always important community spaces, used for outdoor services, for archery practice, markets and fairs as well as for burial. There are records of a hay crop being taken which formed part of the vicar’s stipend and of grazing after the hay was cut. For much of history, grass was an important energy crop, so a meadow would be cut at the height of its growth in summer, when the bulk of the nutrients are above ground, and any cut grass would be dried as hay, raked up and taken to feed animals in winter. Small patches of meadow, such as that found on verges and in churchyards, might not seem worth ‘farming’ now but would have had value back in the day. The wonderful shows of wildflowers that we see in our churchyard meadows are made of plants able to thrive in these conditions, able to survive cutting and grazing. Meadow plants tend to be perennial, these can survive the winter, often living for many years. Perennials do not actually need to flower or set seed although doing so will allow them to increase in number. There are a few meadow plants that are annuals and don’t survive over winter but these, such as yellow rattle, tend to flower early prior to the hay cut, so can grow each year from the seed that has fallen.
Another difference between old fashioned systems and our modern world is mowing machines. These are relatively recent inventions and have become more efficient over the years, able to cut grass really short and very uniform. Again, if you want to increase the flowers, pollinators and wildlife generally, having a slightly longer sward, perhaps cut less often can make a big difference as short-stemmed plants like clovers, daisies, cat’s ear and speedwells can then flower. Things were generally less tidy in the past, as well as a more uneven sward, there would have been edges and corners that didn’t get cut, so places for animals to withdraw to following grass cutting, and to shelter in over winter. Thinking in this way can help to make meadow management easy to understand:
Let the grass grow long for 3 or 4 months over the spring and summer, follow this by a summer cut and rake (you can make hay if you like or just remove the cut grass). Don’t worry about cutting flowers, the plants will survive and some species may regrow and flower again. N.B. If you don’t want to cut particularly late flowering species such as scabious or knapweed, then cut the bulk of the meadow and leave some flowery patches till later on.
Keep grass short over the autumn and winter, the time when it might have been grazed in the past. You’ll probably use a mower for this. Again, do not leave grass cuttings in situ, try to collect them all up and remove for composting.
Remember that, as far as nature goes, we are now a bit too tidy! Set the mower blade high and leave some rough edges or corners. These tussocky corners will contain coarser grasses such as false oat grass and cocksfoot, plants with hollow stems such as hogweed and dead flower heads – all really good places for insects, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals to hide, hunt and hibernate over winter.
So what can you do in October? Not much actually, the hard work should be over! You can make sure that all meadow areas have been cut, raked and are now short, ready for the winter, and can leave any rough corners and dead flower stems as they are, rather than being messy they are a vital resource for the winter.
All the best,
Harriet Carty
Diocesan Churchyard Environmental Advisor
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