Mowing My Mini Meadow
General Principles
Hay meadows by definition have to be mown; a meadow is a mown mead. Like a traditional hedge, a hay meadow is a landscape feature which is hugely beneficial to biodiversity, soil health and carbon capture - while also being man made. Mowing is particularly important these days, when we are faced with "improved" soils with higher fertility and drainage.
We mowed ours a couple of weeks ago this year - in the first week of August. Mowing in later summer like this stops vegetative succession - scrub and then bigger woodland species taking over. Grasses don't have the chance to fall over and form a dense impenetrable thatch.
Cutting should be done early rather than late. The window for it starts in late July and runs through August. People often leave it late as some late species, notably knapweed, are still flowering at this point. It's really important to steel yourself and do it, notwithstanding. If you leave it too late all is lost; the grass will get long and rank, then go over when it gets wet, at which point cutting it is impossible.
Try to change the date of mowing, or - even better - mow your meadow area in sections over a few weeks. This will encourage both early flowering species and the later flowers. An obvious symptom of a meadow cut too late is the sea of knapweed which will confront you, and the disappearance of plants like cowslip.
It's important that you pick up the arisings whenever you cut the meadow. Why? Firstly, to reduce the fertility of the site. Wildflowers don't respond to higher nutrient levels like grasses do, and this is a good way to help. Secondly, hay lying on the ground will act as a mulch and stop shyer wildflowers growing through it.
If you can, leave some margins around the meadow to develop into tussocky grassland. These will provide over-wintering sites for invertebrates and nesting opportunities for voles and bumblebees.
Once you've cut and removed the hay, either run stock into the aftermath or cut it closer. It's not as important to collect these cuttings, but helpful if you can. Keep the meadow occasionally cut or grazed over the autumn and winter, stopping in early March before the Rattle seedlings germinate. Don't worry about cutting it too short.
Small Meadows
The theory is pretty clear, but what does it mean in practical terms for managing a small meadow? If your meadow is above something like 20 acres it's pretty simple. Chances are you'll be able to find a local contractor who will cut, bale and even remove the hay for you. You may even be able to sell someone the seed from it. Happy days.
Councils and contractors are increasingly investing in specialist cut and collect machinery, which is fantastic if you have multiple smaller sites to cut, but super expensive.
For us smaller landowners it's trickier. Contractors aren't interested in our two acres of meadows - why on earth should they be? And the last thing I want on my land is an enthusiastic teenager in a massive tractor manoeuvering around ponds and fruit trees!
Originally I used to scythe our meadows, which I recommend before you become old and knackered. I love my Austrian scythe, and it's definitely the best option for smaller meadow areas like ours. It's extraordinary to think that even lawns like those at Versailles were once cut this way. Richard Brown, ex Emorsgate Seeds, is the doyenne of the scythe world - look him up.
More recently though, I have had to hire kit. Sorry Richard, I've let you down. A power scythe (or sickle-bar mower) is a good shout; these are contemporary versions of the old Allen Scythe. They're relatively light and maneouverable, but they don't cope with rough ground very well, so plant hire business have stopped offering them in favour of flail mowers.
I find these difficult. They're awkward, clunky and hard work to handle, difficult to control and imprecise. They're poorly designed and prone to breaking down. Hmm.
Just this year I have started using a wheeled strimmer. So far I'm very happy with it. To start with, having your own kit is a significant advantage to hiring stuff. It means you can stagger your cut across a month of work, which is pretty optimal in terms of floral diversity.
Second off, unless you have larger areas, the cutting deck is big enough but the cut is precise and the machine easy to use. Thirdly, the payback on a machine like this is around 7 years if the alternative is hiring. Not bad.
After cutting you MUST collect. This means you can't use a mulching mower, incidentally. For smaller sites this generally means raking arisings by hand. This is a bore, but helps spread seed. Don't feel you have to leave the hay lying around for days for the seed to drop from it; just raking it will do the trick.
What do you do with all this hay? Even if you have a lot of Yellow Rattle you'll have a good volume. Farmers generally won't touch hay from sites like yours. They don't know what's in there, the hay is too stalky, the volumes too small. We compost some of it and rake it into our surrounding hedges, where it acts as a mulch to suppress weeds and grass. It's a great feedstock for biodigestors, so I know of some urban projects which dispose of hay this way. Green hay is also a rich - and free! - seed source, of course - you can use it to strew over neighbouring sites.