After a month of whacking bracken and pulling up Himalayan Balsam, nine of us joined Vicky at Styal to do some wildflower planting. The fields we worked in had been part of a dairy farm but for the last 20 years have been grazed by longhorn cattle belonging to the Bollin Valley Partnership. The grazing has encouraged the spread of wildflowers but some species such as birds foot trefoil, common cats ear, yarrow, common knapweed, ox-eye daisy and self heal are not present. Funded by DEFRA's Green Recovery Project, Vicky bought a total of 10,000 plugs of these species, with the aim of increasing biodiversity around the Styal Estate.
Vicky brought trays of flower plugs to the fields where we were working using her quad bike.
A group had already planted about 1,000 plugs earlier in the week so after dividing the field into four sections we started filling in the gaps with these additional species.
So for each plug we
dug a hole a spade deep and square, turned the sod over, spaded the soil to
loosen it, then planted the plug. This gives the plant moist soil to grow in
and space to establish itself so it can compete with the grass.
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