You see, there's not a lot of grass here. Not in June anyway when other farmers are mowing fields of silage or hay. We don't have grass at this time of year and yes we have worried in previous years that there won't be enough to make hay with and the weather won't be right and, well, etc.
We've got flowers. Oodles of flowers. White clover, red clover, yellow rattle, eyebright, whorled caraway, ribwort plantain, sorrel, bluebells, buttercups, orchids...
and lots of bees of all sizes, moths, butterflies, beetles...
There are more orchids every year.
Who needs grass? Actually we do, and this field and it's similar neighbour produced 35 big bales of lovely hay last September, which is more than enough for our needs. It's an absolute privilege to be able to allow the fields to be proper hay meadows, and the tapestry of colour in June is, quite simply, wonderful.
I completely agree with your description of your flowering meadow being like a tapestry in June. Thanks so much for these photographs that really do give the rest of us a sense of its beauty.
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I completely agree with your description of your flowering meadow being like a tapestry in June. Thanks so much for these photographs that really do give the rest of us a sense of its beauty.
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Maggie...looks as if I completely, completely agreed. xo
ReplyDeletePROUD!!! Such stunning hay meadows with their wealth of wild flowers are so rare these days because they have been nitrated to obivion. The yellow rattle is the marker for old meadows. Think of how Shakespeare wrote about the countryside of his time, and how much we have lost. You are custodians of a piece of Wales' agricultural history.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. you should be proud of them.
ReplyDeleteI wish our couple of fields were like that. A local farmer puts sheep on them - as he does on all the other fields around us and their are chomped right down. They're a bit to steep and lumpy to take a cut of hay off with modern machinery too. I guess someone with a scythe could do it!
Sigh - absolutely lovely, and an increasingly rare sight, I should think.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to have a proper hay meadow that is cut for hay rather than silage. It looks really beautiful and you should certainly be very proud of it.
ReplyDeleteI'd go with the flowers over the grass any day! Well, you know what I've allowed to happen just on my tiny lawn. I hope I get rattle in the seeds I've sown as it helps to kick back the grass apparently {Monty Don said so} but will be happy to see anything that arrives. It looks so beautiful and I hope you get time to maybe go take a picnic to the hay meadows! Deb :)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely beautiful, long may your meadows continue.
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