The site has been used for many years to graze cattle and sheep on the grass fields. Having animals on site keeping the grass short has helped promote its growth and an element of natural fertilisation has occurred from the animal dung.
This year we let the grass grow out for hay to help take as much nutrient out of the ground as possible - allowing the grass to grow and go to seed draws a great deal of nutrients from the soil.
Why draw nutrients?
You would be forgiven for wondering why we would want to draw nutrients out of the soil when we are planning on growing thousands of trees and acres of wildflowers on site!
The reason we have done this is contrary to perhaps natural logic, wildflowers in particular do not like nutrient rich soil and thrive on poor ground! By naturally removing as much nutrient as we can from the ground we hope that this will help support our plans for a vibrant wildflower meadow to be established in 2024.
We also know that when the grass grows next year its growth will not be as vigorous as will not have the nutrients it did this year - this is important because for a couple of years we need to make sure that grass and weeds are kept under control so that they do not compete and harm the tree whips which we plant later this year from thriving to the best of their ability.