Cowslips return to the Picnic field at Wandlebury

By 1981 - 1982, volunteers had begun boosting the numbers of cowslip plants ready to plant them out in the picnic field - with a small hitch!

Extract from the podcast of Route and Branch chapter 9 continued, by Bill Clark. Full podcast or the reading by Chris Thomas here: https://archive.org/download/caring-for-wild-plants/Ch9e-caring-for-wild-plants.mp3

...Alan Dixon was the Merrist Wood student for 1981, one of his tasks was collecting and sowing flower seeds, delicate ones put in pots in the greenhouse and some 600 pots of cowslips outside – descendants from the plants that Caroline first saw. Wendy took them over after Alan left, and by the time student Hugh Roberts arrived the following year, many were ready to plant out. As I was to be busy at Bourne windmill on the chosen day, I hurried to the Picnic Field with Hugh and a school boy volunteer, and demonstrated my method of planting. Removing a small square of turf – to ensure the plant didn’t get too much competition at the start – I dug a hole in the centre, put in the plant and firmed it with my heel. Hugh’s planting of the second one was quite satisfactory, and I left them to it.

Upon arriving home at 6.00 pm, I was surprised to see them only just putting the tools away. They had decided to finish the task as the weather forecast was for rain to water them in the next day. After tea, I walked over to admire their work, but before I got near, noticed a problem. During the next couple of weeks, Hugh wandered over the field each morning, picking up every plant that had been pushed out of the ground, to replant them in a different place. During the original planting, he had decided the mole heaps were a ready prepared spot! ...

...Thankfully, I found another grazier and during the next four years, we gave the lawns an early graze to encourage the dwarf grasses, clovers and bird’s-foot-trefoil, then when the seed was ripe, I scythed and spread that too in the Picnic Field. The grazier – Mick Mellows and his son Roy – could not have been more enthusiastic and helpful, even though my set-up meant that they had no security of tenure and must allow me to move the sheep to wherever and whenever I wished. They provided the batteries and electric netting, and though I carefully hid the expensive batteries from view, some were stolen – even the energiser and a complete length of netting on one occasion. They voluntarily tidied up after the sheep with their own tractor and mower – which gave me a small problem! I have never expected – even the most careful wildlife enthusiasts – to be able to notice everything whilst working with machinery: so I examined every area prior to their arrival and flagged up any plants I needed for seed, those with butterfly and mothcaterpillars or eggs on the leaves, or the occasional ground nesting bird, or leveret in its form: in order for them all to be given a wide berth.

One afternoon, I failed to notice the pair waving for my attention. ‘Huh,’ remarked Roy to Mick, ‘We should have been a couple of b***** caterpillars!’ The Picnic Meadow was still short of my vision, but because of the thin grass cover and the activity of moles, many of the arable plants still flourished, so there was always plenty to interest the school children: White campion, Venus’slooking-glass and heart’s-ease. Wild mignonette and red dead-nettles – especially loved by the bees, and stork’s-bill and crane’s-bill providing the food plants that caused an upsurge in Brown Argus butterflies.

Next reading from Chpater 10 - Bruce the Snowy Alsation: https://routeandbranch.blogspot.com/2020/06/bruce-snowy-alsation.html