Second Nature Recovery Day
1. Come and join the final preparation and sowing of Eynsham's new wildflower meadows in Dovehouse Close, Fishponds (Monk's Wood) Car Park and St Leonard's Churchyard. Come down to the allotments and help sow next year's 'Flowers for Wildlife' to create a seed bank for sharing around our gardens.
2. In the process of volunteering, learn hands-on techniques for planting:
(a) a back garden wildflower meadow. Register here
(b) flowers for wildlife - in the border with your garden plants or as a stand alone mixture in an unused corner. Register here
3. Pick up free ‘wildflowers for wildlife seeds’ from the Flowers for Wildlife Group at the allotments.
4. Seek advice from our experts for preparing your own garden on the day (or in advance). If you want to sow this year, you need to start now. Sadly, our three wildflower workshops had to be postponed until next year. But if anyone needs particular advice on what to plant and where, our experienced wildlife gardeners are happy to help. Meadow Advice; 'Flowers for Wildlife' Advice
Background
On September 19th, we are coming together for our Second Nature Recovery Day. On the first NR Day in February, we laid on Storm George and an eager number of ‘nature recoverers’ turned out to test their mettle and plant trees. For this second NR Day, we are planning gentler weather and creating wildflower meadows and planting ‘flowers for wildlife’: in your own gardens and in various public spaces, in Eynsham and surrounding villages.
Wildflower Meadows
Thanks to a grant from the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment, we will be preparing and sowing areas of wildflower meadow in Eynsham’s Dovehouse Close, St Leonard’s Churchyard, and the Fishponds (or Monk’s Wood – older Eynshamers remind us of its real name). Over time, these will become small re-creations of the 1000s of hay meadows that have been lost to Britain since the 1950s, with their wonderful grasses, perennial wildflower plants and their attendant diversity of wildlife.
Flowers for Wildlife
Equally threatened, and important for wildlife, are the wildflowers of old cornfields – cornfield annuals (or arable weeds as farmers called them before weedkillers eliminated most of them from the landscape). These are the red poppies, corn cockles and cornflowers that many of us think of when we think of wildflowers. In a garden environment, wildlife also benefits from certain non-native plants such as lavenders and rosemaries and opium poppies, as well as roses and dahlias - so long as they are the single-petalled varieties.
On the 2nd Nature Recovery Day our Flowers for Wildlife Group will be down on the plot in Eynsham’s Allotments, preparing the ground and sowing next year’s cornfield annuals and numerous other ‘flowers for wildlife’, both wild and domestic.