This is the first entry from my draft manuscript, working title: Spring in the Cottage Garden.
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I finally took the plunge and bought a new scythe. Itās an Austrian orchard scythe, apparently lightweight and good for beginners. Last year I got my hands on a beautiful, but hefty, vintage specimen from a local secondhand shopās closing down sale. It could probably be refurbished to usefulness with enough care and skill but I simply donāt have the expertise just yet nor can I be bothered, if Iām completely honest. For now, it will be another bit of cool-looking vintage āmachineryā adorning my cottage garden, and I will have a new toy to play with instead.
We have two areas that weāre changing from grass to meadow: our front lawn, which is a patch of about 200sqm (a little over 2000sqft); and our recently planted orchard, about an eighth of an acre in our backyard. I was reasonably successful with the meadow orchard last year, though not in the way I had planned. Youāre supposed to start with the ground as grass-free as possible, but at least 50%, and I definitely didnāt do a good enough job. Then you let things grow for a bit, and chop them back down to 20cm (8ā), and then you keep doing this throughout the season. Grass is a thug. Itāll take over if itās given half a chance. And because it grows so vigorously, everything else gets shaded out. So by cutting the whole lot back it means that the other plants in their get a chance at sunlight and over the years thereāll be enough of a seedbank for them to thrive ā thatās the theory, anyway.
Doing the ground work of mowing and weeding, and then mowing and weeding again, turned out to be a bit beyond me ā especially with a new job and hayfever symptoms running riot all season. Iām not too handy with a machine mower, either, and I hate having to get all kitted up just to cut back a bit of grass. I was gifted a cylinder push mower which I used for the meadow pathways and the grassy areas between the vegetable beds which were, in my friendās words of approval, āan artisinal cutā. Hands down, itās one of the most useful tools I own. I love that I can see whatās happening: Iām pushing the mower, which turns the blades, which cuts the lawn. Thereās a real sense of connection between me and machine; machine and garden. Besides, itās a bloody fantastic workout!
So I did my best clearing patches of grass in our loam-ish clay soil, sowing wildflower seed mixes and a poppy seeds I had collected the previous year. The grasses lived up to their thuggish reputation and took most of them over (there was the odd cornflower, a few borage plants that didnāt flower, and by autumn a lonely yellow star-shaped flower emerged, possibly a rudbeckia?). The legumes were most successful: some sweet peas did pretty well from late summer through to the start of winter, and even a few edible pea plants crept their way up our young Granny Smithās slender trunk for a small but regular harvest.
The blue lupins scattered amongst the meadow did exceptionally well, and I have collected seeds to re-sow this time around. Perhaps it is in part because the birds donāt eat these seeds. Having said all that, I noted last year that āMany of the wildflowers need a winter chilling period so they may only come to light next season.ā Perhaps we will see them this spring!
In the end, what made our orchard meadow successful had nothing to do with anything I had intentionally sown, but by what was already there, waiting patiently for a chance to flower without having their heads cut off by a mower: clover, dandelions, yarrow, speedwell, oxeye daisies, bittercress, chickweed, plantain, and deadnettle.
The first floral flush were the dandelions, which seemed to be appreciated by the bees, hoverflies, and other nameless tiny insects. For a while it felt like there were nothing but dandelions as far as the eye could see, and I even had a teensy moment of worrying about what the neighbours would think (interestingly, I noticed dandelion seeds in our Kingās Seed catalogue this year, and I figure if theyāre selling them at a commercial level then I definitely have nothing to worry about!). The daises poked through next in little patches of white, unassumingly resilient, and more tall and magnificent than I had ever seen in a lawn before.
Then there were clovers, white and red (more like violet to my eyes), which I knew we had in abundance and lasted all the way through to autumn, and creeping buttercup, of which I am still tossing up friend or foe status. Yarrow was a real stalwart of our meadow and, as well as giving the grasses a run for their money, are an absolute magnet for butterflies and other insects. Its flowers, when crushed, smell honey-sweet and make a delicious herbal tea, not dissimilar to chamomile.