The Meadow Makers' Network Forum

Hi Jane,
I shopuld have also made the point that fallen dead wood has much value too. Unfortunately I think many woodland owners can't resist the temptation to 'tidy up' and move it or remove it altogether.

Another reason to leave ash trees alone, unless they overhang roads, rights of way, etc is that it is believed that about 3% are resistant to the disease - 1.5% genetically and 1 .5% because they are in a sunny or windy position that the fungus doesn’t like (Woodland Trust estimates).

Since ash seeds so freely, allowing resistant trees to reproduce could give us a new healthy ash population relatively quickly. If we clear-fell, we will bring that natural recovery process to a full stop.

So don't fell that ash unless you really have to!

Hi Jon, Amy & Robin
A very interesting point you make about the temptation to 'tidy up'. I have thought about it this week while tidying up the vegetable garden! I think lots of us understand managing land for a garden, much more so than managing land for wildlife. Even in good organic gardening ( John Seymour, and the rhs both talk about it) tidyness and 'hygiene', such as removing diseased foliage etc are important. Much of it is about breaking the life cycle of various insects too, to save from losing your crop later on.
We are very quick to blame ourselves for not being 'tidy' and 'clean' enough when something goes awry in the garden (a bit too quick to my mind, often our real flaw is a lack of patience. Patience to wait for the predators to arrive).
Can take some effort to change these habits in a situation where they're no longer appropriate (ie managing land for wildlife)

Jon 2 Q please
Would you recommend leaving last year’s dead stems through this summer too? The hogweed, thalictrum, achillea and many others are still standing tho’ v. fragile, do they still have value for anything? (I’ve read that dead bramble stems are used by solitary bees, but I try not to have them in the garden, I’m talking herbaceous here.)

Also - you know the bug hotels sold commercially - they all have neat little canes laid horizontally, and instructions for diy bug hotels, the same, and instructions to put them somewhere dry and sunny and out of the wind for the winter. (Who has somewhere like that for the winter?) I’ve always wondered if the horizontal requirement is only there to satisfy our human sense of tidyness and aesthetics? Because stems left to overwinter stand tall, they don’t line themselves up neatly at right angles..

Hi Amy,
Interesting questions. Like you I still have dead stems in my garden. To be honest I'm not entirely sure if they have much value. I think not because insects don't need to use them for shelter in the summer. I had a look at Buglife's website and it only talks about leaving a patch of grass to grow long and remain uncut over winter. It says these areas should be cut every two or three years. As for bug hotels I suspet you may be right. I wonder if they're used simply because there's a shortage of natural places for them to nest or shelter.

I see you mention something gnawing out of the hogweeds Amy. Am interested as Hogweed is the one plant I try to eliminate from the plot.... should I not bother to try?
(The other one is bramble!)

Hiya Jennifer, may I refer you please to David Crook's Hogweed topic on the Problem Species forum, and to the RSPB forum post he mentions.
(Update: discussion on hogweed on the email exchange - June 21 and it is discussed here re weed puller.)

Hogweed is terribly invasive if you have no grazing animals to eat it. I think it is a question, as always, of priorities and time.

(I, personally, find that I cannot resist encouraging the plants I like, and discouraging the ones I dislike - even, dare I say it on here, prickly things like thistle and bramble, that are so good for wildlife, but are not so good with long lasting deep seated prickles in my fingers, I will very reluctantly tolerate some dead bramble stems for the bees and leave some living bramble for the dunnocks and the blackcaps. With you it is brambles and hogweed, with me, (some of) my bete noires are purple moor grass and thistles.)

I rather enjoyed my statuesque and dramatic Hogweed Walk all last summer, and even the dead stems as a curiosity in winter. But.. last year was the year of lockdown with little going on...

To provide stems for overwintering, obviously means allowing flowers which the beetles and flies will love and provide you with much entertainment, but also means risking those dratted seeds spreading, so do you think the answer might be to continue to control, but leave a manageable amount of flowering stems, even if it is only one or two on one plant, that you can deadhead? I allow them to flower, and nip off the spent flowers at mid flower stalk level, which keeps the whole stem below intact and doesn't open up the hollow centre.. But, leaving the flowers on and deadheading, until it dies in a year or two, is as much if not more work as getting rid of the whole plant in the first instance..

Jon?

PS I was just about to cut down some garlic mustard in a border as I don't want it seeding everywhere, when I wondered if I should leave it? According to multiple online sources, orange tips lay eggs underneath the flower buds, and caterpillars feed on the developing seed pod. I wonder how one can tell if a caterpillar is feeding on the seed pod, apparently they are v difficult to spot. Look for the frass, I suppose. Perhaps the safest thing would be to pull up the plant at the last moment before the pods split and put it on a brash pile.

Advice from Butterfly Conservation:
Go Easy on the Hedge Cutting Leave the Leaves, Don't burn them.
Create a Wild Space Elephant Hawkmoth
Leave some stems uncut
Orange Tip chrysalis
https://butterfly-conservation.org/news ... his-winter

Buglife wants us to leave some dead stems of hogweed and other flowers over winter.
See Buglife's video - Meadow Bugs Course