31. Micro Rewilding

The EcoBungalow project isn’t just about the building: it’s also about making my small plot of land as sustainable as possible. Right from the start, I wanted to find ways for the garden to contribute as much to the environment as possible. I wrote about this in Blogpost 10: There’s more to it than just the building.

To recap, I’m transforming the front garden from a traditional manicured suburban garden to a rewilded place, full of native species. The aim is to create a garden that not only looks good but provides food and shelter for birds, bees, insects and whatever else turns up. There are three parts to this:

• a mixed grass and wildflower meadow;

• new fruit trees; and

• a native hedgerow forming a perimeter.

There was a lot of hard work last year preparing the garden and planting. But – one year on – it’s already paying off.

Meadow

1. The topsoil had been scraped to the side to create a gravel area for the builder to work. Improved drainage for rainwater from the roof had been created – a massive hole in the ground, filled with a soakaway crate. We kept some of the boulders excavated to create the drainage – potentially great habitat for critters.

2. After the drainage works were complete, the original topsoil was spread out and supplemented with new. In retrospect, less fertile soil would have been better – meadows prefer lower quality.

3. The topsoil was left to do its own thing for a couple of months, allowing stuff already in the soil to grow. Mine was clearly agricultural in origin: I ended up with a lovely crop of rapeseed! It was back breaking work to remove it all to create naked ground needed for seeding the meadow.

4. The meadow is Boston Seeds’ BSBM Butterfly and Bee 80/20 Wildflower Meadow Mix. This is made up of 80% meadow grass (6 different types) with 20% mix of 26 different native flowers. I’m no gardener, so this was all new to me. Boston Seeds’ instructions are very clear, and I followed them to the letter:

   • creating as much bare soil as possible, cultivating it to ensure the soil wasn’t compacted and then lightly rolling with a hired roller (Thanks SHC Kendal for cost effective hire and friendly service);

   • marking out the area in 1 metre wide ‘corridors’ to ensure that the seed was sown at the recommended 5g/per sqm. This seems like a TINY amount!

   • rolling the seed in to ensure good contact with the soil; and

   • creating crude ‘bird-scarers’ of plastic strips attached to canes to stop the local wildlife scoffing all that lovely seed.

     

5.  It seemed to take AGES for anything to happen but – eventually, after a month or so – there were signs of growth. At this stage, the patches of the original grass from the suburban lawn were still looking strong. So I borrowed a scarifier, tore up these areas and seeded the bare patches, adding a little pure Yellow Rattle seed. Yellow Rattle is known as the ‘meadow maker’ – it’s parasitic, feeding off the roots of grasses. It weakens strong grass, enabling other species to flourish. I hoped my targeting of these areas of original lawn grass with the ‘meadow maker’ would ultimately help to weaken them.

6. Once the meadow is established, I should only need to mow twice a year: once in March, and once in September/October. However, Boston Seeds recommend an additional cut in May of the first year, as the grasses will grow first and tend to dominate the meadow. I did this, and removed the clippings so that they didn’t interfere with the growth of the wildflowers.

The results have far exceeded my expectations for the first year of the meadow. It’s only the end of May, and I’ve already got buttercups, white clover, crimson clover, yellow rattle, kidney vetch, oxeye daisy, corn cockle, poppies and cornflowers. Oh, and dandelions of course! I’m finding it surprisingly hard to identify the different types of grass, but there’s definitely stuff that ISN’T the old lawn grass. I’m especially excited about the yellow rattle – notoriously difficult to cultivate, and there’s loads of it.

The meadow isn’t perfect. It takes years to establish a really good one. It’s a bit patchy: there are a couple of areas which lack diversity, where the old lawn grass is clinging on despite my efforts. My plan is to scarify and re-seed these in September, and hopefully next year should be even better than this one!

Fruit trees

Planting three fruit trees was the easiest part of the micro re-wilding exercise. There’s a Crab Apple, Bramley and Victoria Plum, spaced strategically around the soakaway. They went in in October 2024, and look to be doing well despite named storms, endless deluges, drought and incredibly stony ground. It’s a joy to look out of the kitchen window and see a birds perching on them, even at this early stage.

Hedgerow

This was the toughest job of the lot.

The ground preparation was the hardest part. Hedgerows need a weed-free area to thrive. The previous planting in the hedgerow zone was series of shrubs with a weed membrane and ornamental gravel on top. I’d got the builder to remove some of this during the creation of the work area in the front garden, but the remainder I dug out by hand, relocating the gravel to the back garden. But I’d also made life harder by planting the meadow right up to the boundary – I should have left the area destined to be hedgerow clear. So I also had to clear my new meadow to prepare the ground for the hedgerow.

I planted bare root native hedgerow plants, most from the very helpful Ashridge Trees. Ashridge have informative videos and useful advice on their website. As for the meadow planting, I followed the instructions to the letter. This video was especially useful.

It was a massive job to plant all 60 plants over two days. Despite my efforts of preparing the ground, the ground was still incredibly stony. Once planted, the instructions say to cut off half of the plant to encourage bushy growth. It seems counter-intuitive, but I did what I was told and bravely cut my carefully planted hedging down by 50%. The end result looked like I’d planted a row of sticks and invited plenty of amused comments from passing neighbours!

But it worked! With a programme of weeding, watering during dry spells and watching out for ‘wind rock’ (loosening of plants in the soil), most of the plants are flourishing with just a few being slow to get going. The mix of around 60% hawthorn with hazel, spindleberry, crabapple, field maple, sweet cherry, dog rose and alder should ultimately provide a dense hedgerow loved by birds, bees, insects and maybe some mammals.

I’m delighted with how my front garden is developing. To this novice gardener, the key lessons have been:

• preparation is everything – get it right, and things will grow;

• trust the instructions – yes, even cutting 50% off your newly planted hedgerow; and

• seeing new species emerge is really satisfying. It’s only a small area of land, but watching the bees buzz around the flower meadow is just wonderful.

#EcoBungalow #Passivehouse #Passivhaus #Rewilding #Nativespecies #Meadow #Yellowrattle