Marcus and myself made it today and we started to create our wildflower meadow. We have allowed our ideas to morph a little bit and are now creating this meadow around the communal bench in the bird-feeder area. It is just so much easier to get to and is the central part of the greenway.
We are starting to clear four 12 mtr by 4 mtr areas around the bench. It is not looking very pretty at the moment (work in progress) but we will focus on clearing the ground and digging out the roots of brambles. Everything that we dig out will be used to create habitat piles for existing wildlife.
This will give us 200 sq mtrs of meadow. We can see how it goes, or grows, and see where we go with it. We can either extend what we have, or create another meadow area further down the path. 
We just need to be mindful of how easily we can manage these areas, once they are up and running. We will need to weed out things that start to come up that are already in the seed-bank, or at least keep them in check to give our new seeds a chance to germinate and grow. And we need to be able to mow it at the end of the season.
The seed and grass mix is this:-
35% Wildflowers
3% Yarrow
1% Hedge Garlic
3% Cornflower
2% Lesser Knapweed
2% Oxeye Daisy
2% Wild Carrot
3% Teasel
3% Vipers Bugloss
1% St John’s-wort
1% Field Scabious
3% Birdsfoot Trefoil
1% Wild Parsnip
2% Common Sorrel
2% Red Clover
1% Dark Mullein
1% Tall Mullein
65% Grasses
5% Meadow Foxtail
20% Crested Dogstail
15% Cocksfoot
10% Red Fescue
5% Yorkshire Fog
10% Common Bent
This is a pretty exciting project and brings another layer of biodiversity to this area. To just sit at our bench and watch the birds and butterflies feeding will be fantastic.
If you are wanting to get involved with volunteering and have a love of nature, come along and try us out.
Paul
