St James  Church Mini - Meadow

St James’ Church Mini - Meadow

Working in collaboration with St James Parish Church In Bramley, a work party established a small meadow area in the grave yard.

Churchyards are important refuges for wildlife as the soil has never been ploughed or treated with chemicals, especially with an 800-year-old church like St James'. This space should create a little snapshot of how the countryside used to look because of the historically low level of soil disturbance and lack of chemical pollution. Our first step was to carry out a survey of the area, led by a trainer from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. We studied the area and identified a range of wildflowers, grasses and insects. Then a joint work party of church and Wilder Bramley members set about creating the mini-meadow. Wild flowers grow best in poor soil, so the grass was cut low and collected (to stop the cuttings from fertilising the soil), and some bare patches of soil were created. Then native flower seeds were sown, as well as some yellow rattle to reduce the vigour of the grasses and encourage the wildflowers to grow with less competition. We were pleased to spot some long earthworms and ant mounds were noticeable, both indicators of good soil health. 

In the autumn and spring we hold work parties of volunteers to carry out scything of this area. The grass needs to be cut to prevent more vigorous grasses from smothering the wildflowers. We use traditional and sustainable manual methods to cut the grass because it avoids killing large numbers of insects (unlike mowing). Volunteers reported the quiet, rhythmic swishing to be quite enjoyably therapeutic! The long grasses are cut, then raked up to enable the sun and rain to reach wildflower seeds in the soil.

Would you like to help out at one of our work parties? 

We need some people to carry out scything (equipment and training supplied) and some people to help rake up the grass cuttings afterwards. You can find the dates on our Future Events page. Why not contact us for more information, or just come along and give it a try?