Wildflower seed harvested from Wembury sown at Central Park!
The Green Communities team has been busy at National Trust's Wembury Barton Farm with the seed harvester, collecting wildflower seeds from one of their meadows.
This seed that was collected was then dried and sieved three times to remove any of the non-seed material. On Wednesday (24 Sept), a group of volunteers from the University of Plymouth came to Central Park to help create a mini meadow using the seed.
Because the seed has been harvested, and not bought, it's hard to know exactly what species are present in the mix, but we are expecting a mix of annuals such as Corn Marigolds, Shepards Purse, Fat Hen, Corn Flower, Field Poppies, Common Vetch, and perennials, like Mugwort, Sainfoin, Red Clover, yarrow, Oxeye Daisy, and Birds-foot Trefoil.
The flowers won't all come up at once. Next spring, the brighter flowers of the annuals will bloom, while the perennials focus on root and leaf development in the first year. The annuals will drop their seeds in late summer next year, hopefully self-seeding new plants for the following spring, and the annuals will then pop up too.
The mix of annuals and perennials will provide a varied, resilient habitat, and food source for insects.
We know it doesn’t look like much right now, the seed will stay dormant over the winter, ready to bloom in the spring. Watch this space!
We'd like to say a big thank you to the team at Wembury Barton Farm for sharing your machinery, knowledge, and seed with us, and the Plymouth University volunteers who did an amazing job of preparing the ground and sowing the seeds.
