2025 - A Good Year for Wildflower?

Wildflower Meadow managed on the outskirts of Bath

As the picture above shows… not a bad year at all!

But this ‘unseasonably hot’ weather that recurs ever more frequently is playing a part in how we manage our wildflower sites.

How does this heat affect our approach?
Essentially, the early season hot and humid weather pushed a brilliant amount of growth earlier than we’d usually expect with great flower density.

However, by July we were beginning to see a wilting of the wildflowers themselves, prompting cuts in early August - a full six weeks before conventional cuts - as we sought to help distribute the seed heads but keep the green matter from this years growth re-entering the soil.

As an advocate of closed-loop systems recycling green waste to aid soil regeneration, the notion of removing nutrients for a meadow to thrive was seemed completely illogical. However, it’s precisely because of this that our meadows can thrive; the more nutrient-deprived the soil, the lower density of grasses and other growth which will inhibit wildflower growth.

That hot, humid weather, then followed by incredibly dry periods, is precisely what drives the growth of these inhibiting species. The growth of grass is our simplest indicator; if the meadows are cut in August, and we see significant grass growth by October, an additional cut and collect early winter helps to keep the grass low and less likely to out-compete the wildflower.

Likewise, the continued safeguarding of species such as Yellow Rattle keep grass growth in check due to their hemiparasitic nature, as this species not only provides brilliant plant cover, but feeds semi-parasitically off of the nearby root systems of grasses.

However, we are seeing a reduction in sowing windows as longer more temperate spells reduce the opportunity for species such as Yellow Rattle or Cowslip to experience the cold cues which are essential for their germination. In our established meadows, this isn’t a game changing issue, but it does reduce opportunity for future intervention / regeneration if there’s a poor crop of naturally dispersed seeds.

As with all maintenance, future proofing our processes where possible, boosting seed yields whilst we can through actively spreading during the harvest of the stems, and clearing the ground for optimum flower growth remains the key tenets of our approach, whilst a reactive approach to changing climate conditions retains these spaces for years to come.