The Meadow Makers' Network Forum

Groundsel Senecio vulgaris and possibly Toadflax Linaria vulgaris.

Cinnabar moth caterpillars are more commonly found on the related species Common Ragwort Jacobea vulgaris but are sometimes found on Groundsel.

As Sarah says, your site is probably already full of all kinds of invertebrates feeding and sheltering in the tall vegetation, which in turn will support plenty of birds and small mammals. I wonder why you want to turn this into a meadow rather than respecting the inherent nature of the site. You ca...

If there are any Blackthorn plants in the area, they will inevitably continue to produce copious suckers, so you need to target the parent plants. For this reason we have edited out all the Blackthorn in the hedges around our garden. I've achieved this largely through ring-barking the established tr...

As well as garden hybrids such as 'Shasta Daisy' Leucanthemum x superba, there are probably some non-native genotypes of Oxeye Daisy around in cultivation too. However, even native genotypes can look remarkably different in different habitats - even within our small garden, the plants that have seed...

For the Yellow Bartsia, I removed one or two fruits from each of a dozen or so plants and put them in a paper bag to dry out for a few days. I haven't harvested the Euphrasia yet, but as they have many fewer seeds per fruit, I would probably cut a single flower spike from each of the plants and like...

Last year I sowed some Yellow Bartsia in a small patch of our micro-meadow, which resulted in a few dozen flowering plants. These were left to seed (much later than yellow rattle) and I'm now waiting to see if any come up again this year, I suspect our soil is too damp and densely vegetated for it t...

My advice is always don't sow anything until you have properly surveyed what is already there. Leave the existing vegetation to grow tall this year and in summer do a proper survey of which species and habitats you have. If it's a village green then it has likely always been short, heavily trampled ...

Collin's Wild Flower Guide by David Streeter and The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose and Claire O'Reilly are currently the best field guides with illustrations of almost all the native and naturalised plants you are likely to find in the British Countryside. The former includes grasses, ferns etc, w...

This is an excellent project, congratulations on an excellent report which clears shows a lot of detailed work and knowledge by a dedicated group. I wondered if you have conferred with Roger Smith, the vascular plant recorder for South Devon, for both the Devonshire Association and the Botanical Soc...

Orchid seeds can't easily be grown into plants - in the wild they rely on just the right soil conditions in combination with a particular species of fungus that the seed develops a symbiotic association with. In cultivation, you need sterile laboratory facilities and to grow the seeds on a nutrient-...