Is it the Sun? Surely Not!
Yes that’s right, the pleasant temperatures and sunny skies have decided to finally pay us a visit and ‘About Time’ I might add. This has been great for bug’s of all shapes and sizes particularly those all important pollinators.
This week I had the chance to see some of the machinery used in the fine art of meadow creation. We put a stone-burrier to the task at Hogganfield Park LNR as well as an agricultural-seeder on small area to see if these pieces of machinery would fare better than the scarifying that had been tried the year before.
Stone burrier in action at Hogganfield LNR
End Result
As you can see from the picture above the stone burrier roughs up the grass leaving disturbed soil which will be ideal for planting wildflower seed. Scarifying on the other hand just leaves small thin tracks in the grass which are often readily overtaken by it after a few weeks.
A meadow creation factoid for you all; the ideal amount of wildflower seed to be used when creating a meadow is 3 grams of seed per metre2. Keeping to this small rate when using an agricultural sized seeding machine can be difficult, it therefore requires a complicated calibration process; which I steered clear of (due to the fact my mental arithmetic is…well….Rank!)
Performance Issues; Cath Scott makes sure the seed is dissapearing at the right rate.
The same process was trialled on a small patch within Cranhill Park, adjacent to the existing patch of meadow which was put in place during year one of the project. So hopefully, if the seed takes, we will have a larger area of bright, pollen rich flowers to entice pollinating insects.
Seeding wildlfower mix at Cranhill Park
One thing I stumbled upon on the day however, gives light to one of the more peculiar ecological stories in Glasgow; the ‘Mysterious Water-voles’ of Cranhill park. There is no water course running through this area and it is surrounded by housing estates, so why is there such a large population of water-voles residing in this area.
Ex Water vole
This is a question which Glasgow City Council’s Rangers and biodiversity officers are looking for an answer. More on this Story as the year rolls on….