At the weekend we took part in a working party at the allotment. These are held regularly aiming to maintain the shared green spaces around the site. The main task for this day was to give the meadows and long grass areas their annual haircut. The photo below shows members strimming the turf spiral maze and mowing the long grass under the fruit trees in one of the community orchards.
Once the orchard has been treated to its annual trim it looks so flat and dull. The tall grasses always sway gently in the slightest breeze and attract insects and butterflies. Cutting these grasses down really emphasise that summer is coming to an end.
We hope next year to be able to plant plugs of wildflowers into the grass of the meadows and orchards. We have already planted bulbs in the meadows, daffodils into the one and alliums, muscari and crocus into the other. The photo below shows one of our orchards in early summer when the purple globes flowers of the alliums look stunning with the dainty yellow flowers of the meadow buttercups. This picnic is particularly popular with plotters when they take their coffee-breaks or wish to sit and quietly read a book.
greenbenchramblings 