Monmouthshire Meadows Group Dampness

Issue 15 Autumn 2011 MONMOUTHSHIRE MEADOWS Aim - To conserve and enhance the landscape by enabling members to maintain, manage and restore their semi-natural grasslands and associated features. winning the Greenweb The financial support of the Environment Group award for Countryside Council for Wales 2011. At an awards ceremony in is also much appreciated with Contents June in Usk, we received a special thanks to Rob Bacon and framed certificate and a cheque Miki Miyata-Lee of CCW for their 1. From the Chair for £50. help and support towards our last 2. Mini-meadows 3. Focus on Members Efforts 4. New Projects to Help Wild Life Sites 5. Open Day 2011 6. Ragwort, the legal position 7. GWT Open Day, Dingestow Court 8. SEWBReC 9. Hay Making Report 10. Local wildlife Sites 11. Abergavenny Churchyard To join contact Pam LLoyd on 0600 860924 or Steph with Dick Cole of Gavo [email protected] I am delighted to announce that application – for a baler, trailer or Bill at Environment Wales, A and seed-harvesting costs. williamhoward142@btinternet.. partnership of voluntary com organisations funded through CCW of course enabled us to Welsh Assembly Government is buy our hardy Trakmaster to give MMG almost £1,000. machine which has again been active on various sites through From the Chair This is partly for travel costs associated with survey work on the autumn cutting grass and Stephanie Tyler members’ fields but mainly for a brambles. report that collates all our The funding from PONT towards The spring and summer of 2011 existing data and the follow-up have been very busy for the the upkeep of our two Exmoor visits we have made to sites Ponies enabled us to buy various Group - filling in more surveyed first five or six years applications for funding; sorting items including more electric ago. We greatly appreciate this fencing; Alan and Steph Poulter grazing for the ponies; carrying financial help and we thank the out work tasks; organising the continue to bear the brunt of the support of the Wales Heathland work involved in caring for them Open Day; having a presence at and Lowland Grassland Group various events; giving talks and and transporting them to and also of Alison Colebrook of members’ fields. carrying out surveys of new the Welsh Wildlife Trusts for members’ fields and advisory encouraging MMG with the Other initiatives with which MMG visits - has taken many many application and helping us has been involved include sitting hours of time and effort. develop various MMG policies on a committee that aims to The work of MMG was (Health & Safety, Welsh restore a hay-meadow at recognised by GAVO (Gwent Language, Volunteering and Llanyrafon and advising the co- Association of Voluntary Environment policies) that were ordinators of the Two Rivers Organisations) in the Group needed for the application. Project in Monmouth. We have 1 www.monmouthshiremeadows.co.uk Issue 15 Autumn 2011 also given talks to several local groups including the gardening club at The Narth. Our basic work has continued with many surveys carried out during the spring and summer on new members’ fields and on those of potential new members. Yet more sites that reach the criteria of Local Wildlife Sites have been discovered, for example some lovely fields near Earlswood owned by Chris and Joni Gooch. Another such candidate Local Wildlife Site is Monmouthshire County Council’s interesting meadows by the River Wye at Tintern Station. Follow- Garden bank in Llandogo Photo: Ann Hercock ups were also made at a number of sites previously surveyed. area after the end of March or where Green-winged Orchids still I thank Glynis Laws, Maggie Biss mid April and see what appears. appear and in Chepstow our and Sheelagh Kerry for their Even if only White Clover and President Trevor Evans has the assistance with some surveys. Self Heal flower it is better for small orchid, Autumn Ladies Caroline Howard has continued bees, grasshoppers and spiders Tresses, on his lawn in the her work restoring species-rich than a mown lawn If few species summer. grassland at St Mary’s Church at appear, you can always add Tintern and a highlight this wildflower seed sourced locally During our surveys of members’ summer was the discovery of a through MMG or a firm that uses fields we have come across Martagon Lily in full flower. local seed such as Plant Wild, some lovely examples of mini Leominster. Likewise if you have meadows. Bill Howard reports in this a spare patch in the garden of At the interesting garden at the newsletter on our hay-making bare ground, try sowing some Veddw owned by Anne Wareham activities which partly because of wild flower seed in the late and Charles Hawes, there are the weather and partly because summer/autumn. two areas of meadow with lots of of problems with machinery were interesting native meadow not a resounding success this All you have to do to maintain the flowers including Lousewort. year. Some members were meadow is leave well alone from In one mini meadow various happy but others were the end of March and then cut it other bulbous plants have been unfortunately not. It should be in mid July or as late as added. remembered though that Bill and September and do remember to Jeremy Harris and Claire volunteers, notably Martin Fenn- rake all the cut material off so Adamson just over the county Smith, Lindsay Tyler and Ed that you do not mulch the border at Broadoak have a lovely Rogers have put in a huge ground. Wild flowers prosper garden meadow that they amount of effort on this. Our best in soil with a low fertility. A created from scratch with Ox-eye excellent Trakmaster machine second cut of your mini-meadow Daisies, Field Scabious and (allen scythe), bought with CCW may be needed in the late Ladies Bedstraw. At Llandogo funding, has however, been autumn or at the end of the Ann Hercock also has a mini much in use at various sites, winter then just leave it for four or meadow in her garden, rife with clearing long grass and more months. Ox-eye Daisies but amongst brambles. them a host of other species Mini meadows We stopped cutting part of our including this year her first lawn in 2010 and immediately Spotted Orchid. At Mitchel Troy Stephanie Tyler had several Spotted Orchids Gill Pollock has a beautiful bank You don’t need to have a field to appear; this year there were four in her garden with many orchids create a meadow and help flowering spikes. Perhaps they and other typical meadow increase biodiversity. Anyone were there all along but never species. Just up the road from with a lawn or spare patch of surfaced because of being Gill is Nigel and Jane ground in their garden can create mown. In Penallt village some Seathornes’ garden where two mini meadow. With a lawn it is modern houses built since 1980 areas of lawn have been allowed easy – simply stop mowing an on old meadows have lawns to develop as mini meadows. In 2 www.monmouthshiremeadows.co.uk Issue 15 Autumn 2011 one small area in June there scrub during the last two years. On the bottom edge adjacent to were two huge flowering spikes On one winter’s day a few MMG the Gwent Wildlife Trust’s of Broad-leaved Helleborine. members went along to help. At Margarets Wood are abundant both ends of the field Sarah and Wild Daffodils whilst in the Tom have planted native trees shadier area below the woodland but they are restoring the on the top border are Bluebells, grassland over much of the area. Pignut and violets galore Amazingly when dense brambles spreading down in to the field. were cleared back, Spotted Management is quite labour- Orchids instantly appeared. intensive because Sarah and The remnant grassland patch Tom don’t want machines on the has now greatly expanded and land in case Slow Worms are various grasses, Knapweed, killed. Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Sorrel, Tormentil and Lesser Stitchwort again flourish. Broad-leaved Helleborines I gave a talk about the Meadows Group to Narth Gardening Club at the end of May and sang the praises of garden meadow patches to provide refuges for meadow plants but also to provide food and shelter for a range of insects and other invertebrates. Afterwards John Dransfield, the Chairman, showed me his garden where he and his wife had a superb mini- meadow with 20+ Spotted Orchids! Contd page 6 The field covered in brambles Whitebrook Focus on members efforts Land in the Whitebrook Valley Stephanie Tyler Land in the Whitebrook Valley In the 1980s a steep north-facing field in the Whitebrook valley across from Kinson Farm was a flower-rich pasture and worthy of being a Local Wildlife Site. Sadly over the next 25 years or so no grazing occurred and brambles and scrub gradually took over the field, leaving in 2009 just a tiny area of grassland in the middle. Then MMG members, Sarah Cheese and Tom Cousins from Coleford bought the field and set themselves the task of restoring it. They and their two boys have spent numerous days clearing brambles and cutting back the Winter work party Whitebrook 3 www.monmouthshiremeadows.co.uk Issue 15 Autumn 2011 support. They are a voluntary system to encourage and support landowners to learn about the special wildlife on their land and how to care for it, and are a reason to be proud. Monmouthshire already has over 300 Local Wildlife Sites, many owned by MMG members, but there are more to be discovered! The Natural Assets Project will be delivered by Gwent Wildlife Trust and staff will be on hand to assist with wildlife surveys and management advice, plus help applicants with the associated grant scheme.

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