Swaddywell in Bloom 2011

This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show had several gardens with a natural planting scheme, using “wild” species. Perhaps they had taken inspiration from our very own Swaddywell Pit, as the following pictures illustrate.

The cold winter may have had an effect: certainly the land management did so. The top meadow was well grazed in 2010. The area in the NW corner of the old quarry floor (nearest geology point 3) was specifically transformed in winter2009/10 by work-party volunteers cutting back the huge bramble bank, then again in winter/spring 2010/11 by more effort to cut back the vegetation in a three-year rotation.

The results were spectacular - in the top meadow a carpet of orchids that lasted from late June (the season was early) to the last flower heads in early August.

Across the lower site there appeared a blaze of wild marjoram and wild carrot that is only now beginning to fade. All this was attractive to insects - in the sheltered corners, there were large numbers of seasonal butterflies and moths, and especially bees at a time of great stress for them.

A practice run ahead of the Farm Sunday walk in early July easily noted over 20 species in bloom (ignoring the “common” ones). My favourites were the Pyramidal Orchids, the Bee Orchids near geology point 5, the tiny Eyebright, and a stranger to me called Weld - a mignonette used in olden times as a source of yellow dye!

It is amazing how species which must have been dormant in the seed bank then develop when their special conditions arise. Examples are the Cudweed spreading on a harsh bare earth gateway floor (leading to geology point 2) and the Eyebright clustered in less than one square metre on the now dry edge of the large pond. Let’s hope the Bee Orchids continue to develop, and the Grass Vetchling (which has been absent for two years now) returns to the fringes of the top meadow.

Here are the pictures which show some of the breadth of species at Swaddywell -a quite special floral environment.