Our School Grounds: Providing Food – Meadows
Case Study: Don’t Mow Let it Grow
Often there are plenty of wildflowers already growing all around us, but we never
notice them as they are mown before they have the chance to flower.
Residents at Glen Cairn Allotment Garden
in Northern Ireland were delighted at the
diversity of their patch when they stopped
regular mowing, encouraged by a meadow
project run by the Heritage Lottery funded
Heart of the Glens landscape partnership.
Mowing a path through the flowering
meadow ensures the area does not look
neglected and increases access and
enjoyment.
Identify areas of your patch where the
grass can be left unmown throughout the
year and then leave them alone to see what
happens. Monitor these areas through the
first year and make a note of what
wildflowers and grasses appear as this will
help you identify what type of meadow you
have.
If you find these areas have very low
numbers of flowering plants and are
dominated by one or two sorts of grass
you will need to try a method of meadow
creation, but more likely you will be
amazed at what was waiting to bloom.
Glen Carin Allotment Gardens Meadow by the
Heart of the Glens Landscape Partnership
This is a partnership project with: Learning through Landscapes, Buglife, Butterfly Conservation, Field Studies Council, OPAL, University of
Stirling, TCV and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust