bog that has evolved with its mantle of plants and animals over time to what it is today. But next to the car park at Flanders is a much more recent bit of habitat. There is a bit of meadow that is only 3 years old but is already looking great and getting better each year. When the car park was landscaped a large pile of sticky, infertile clay from ditches was flattened and spread. Few pants grew back on it and we realised that this would be ideal for creating a wildflower meadow. Wildflowers grow best where there is little plant food available. Where there is lots (as in a modern farm field) then the grasses swamp out the flowers. As the grasses were growing so poorly we knew that wildflower would grow on our bit.So we enlisted Thornhill Primary to help us over the past 3 years to plant out pot grown wildflowers from the SWT Jupiter wildlife garden site at Grangemouth. And now we are starting to see the fruits.
A gentle walk round the meadow will show you bright yellow meadow buttercups, purple vetches, pink wispy ragged robin and bubbly yellow and orange birds foot trefoil. Some have spread in on their own like the selfheal and others have come in from seed collected from other meadows nearby. Especially pleasing is the yellow or hay rattle. This plant is special as it is semi-parasitic on grasses so helps keep the grasses down so other wildflowers can fill-in the gaps. More flowers are growing and we will be planting more in the autumn so keep an eye on the meadow and see how it develops.
