It's no fun sitting around doing nothing all day, so last year I set up a community interest company in the Uk, primarily to raise funds to organise beach cleans in my little corner of Kent. A CIC means you can do stuff exactly as you would with a normal Ltd. company. Directors have limited liability, but all profits have to be distributed to community projects, not to shareholders.
The local authority is much maligned by the local community - not without some justification. But so far, at least, I've found them receptive to community based initiatives to improve the local environment. This "Re-wilding" project being the latest.
There's a patch of land, approx 1/3 of an acre nearby. It belongs to the local council. It's little more than occasionally mown weeds, bits of dog poo and litter that gets shredded by the council grass cutting contractor because the mowing contract doesn't include litter picking.
So we've approached the council and got permission to "adopt" the land as a community supported project to re-wild as a wild flower meadow.
The UK has lost 95 % of its wild flower meadows. They are essential to pollinators and provide habitat for all sorts of little cuddly and not so cuddly animals which is generally regarded as a good thing.
To create a wild flower meadow you need a few things. Time, because nature works at its own pace. Money, because you need seeds and some of the jobs require machinery and labour - quite a lot of it, in fact.
The process takes a couple of years to get going properly.
Here's the steps:
Year 1:
Mow every 2 weeks and collect all cuttings. It is important to remove the nutrients from the soil, leaving the clippings simply returns fertility.
By autumn by a final mow and collect. Then scarify the land. This removes all the moss and matted grasses. A bit like combing your hair, if you can remember that far back.
Forage and collect wild flower seeds from other local sites. Buy the remainder
We then have to cut patches of turf out and till the oil below ready for the autumn sowing of Yellow Rattle. This plant is supposed to be the enemy of grass and makes it easier for other wild flowers (good) to out compete the grasses (bad).
Sow Yellow Rattle sparingly everywhere with clumps in the denuded areas of turf.
Year 2:
Cut and collect
Cut out more patches of turf (i'm thinking 60+ of 60cm2), till
Sow wild flower seeds (both the foraged and the bought
Water regularly to establish
Leave to grow until Autumn, except for a path way through and around that needs to be neatly mown to contrast with the wild areas. There's a fine line between "re-wilding" and looking neglected. So we are also tidying up the bushes and perimeter to keep the less imaginative neighbours on board