We have been experiencing problems with the website over the past week or so. At present we cannot post images. We are currently attempting to take steps to remedy these problems. Please bear with us. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. In the meantime there will be a work party in St George's Park at 10am tomorrow Sat 28 May meet at the shelter or look out for the hi-viz vests. Thanks for your patience.
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Comments have been made that the meadow in St George’s Park is not as colourful as other plantings of wildflowers in the area. These other plantings are not strictly meadows but naturalized flower beds of annual wildflowers, including poppies and cornflowers found in arable fields, supplemented by non-native flowers such as Californian poppies to prolong the flowering period.They a bright, colourful, beneficial to pollinators and low maintenance and are a welcome addition to the environment but totally different to our native wildflower meadow or lammas meadow.
Before the Second World War, wildflower meadows humming with insects would have been a familiar sight across lowland UK. However, in recent years over 95% of our lowland meadows have disappeared. Without care, those meadows that are left become rank, as vigorous grasses shade out delicate wild flowers and brambles take over. Meadow is grassland which is mown for hay in summer to provide winter fodder. Meadow is the best recorded land-use in the Doomsday Book and is frequently found to be rated as three times the value of arable land underlining the importance attached to hay. Hay would have permitted more livestock to live, work and produce during the winter than from winter grazing alone. Meadowland is often used as pasturage once the hay crop has been removed. Lammas describes a particular type of land management regime The owner, traditionally the lord of the manor in which the meadow lies, divides the meadow into parcels referred to as ‘lots’ or ‘doles’. He then sells the rights to the hay crop to local farmers who are responsible for harvesting the hay in each allotment. However after the hay crop has been gathered, the meadow becomes common pasture and the livestock of certain commoners are entitled to graze the entire meadow irrespective of the hay rights. Traditionally, the commonable rights begin on August 12th, also known as Lammas day, and end around Candlemas at the beginning of February when once again the meadow is laid up for hay. Lammas is a medieval English name derived from the Anglo-Saxon hlaef-mass or ‘loaf mass’ festival held on August 1st to mark the opening of the harvest. The first of the ripe cereals were picked, baked into bread, consecrated at church and on the 12th, they were crumbled into the four corners of a barn to make it a safe repository for the grain about to arrive there. This festival appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 912 as ‘the feast of the first fruits’. The hay would have been cut with a scythe and allowed to lie and dry out for a short while before being gathered up. This would have allowed time for seeds from the wild flowers among the grass to fall. When the meadow was then turned over to pasture the feet of the grazing animals would have pushed the seeds into the soil. Our meadow is cut in the beginning of August. The cuttings are allowed to lie for the wild flower seeds to drop and then raked up so as not to enrich the soil which would reduce the numbers of wildflowers. Less than 15,000 hectares of unimproved neutral grassland remains in the UK – an area roughly the size of Bristol. Most sites are relatively small and fragmented, but major concentrations can be found in places such as Worcestershire and parts of Wales. The meadow in St George’s Park is sown with a Welsh Marches Mix collected in Herefordshire which includes fine meadow grasses and flowers including Yellow rattle, Ox-eye daisy, Common knapweed, Red clover, Meadow buttercup, Birdsfoot trefoil, Agrimony, Ribwort plantain, White clover, Common catsear, Selfheal, Eyebright, Common Spotted Orchid, Lesser stitchwort, Hop trefoil, Cowslip, Crow garlic, Sweet vernal grass, Crested dogstail , Yorkshire fog, Meadow foxtail, Common bent FoSGP monthly meeting will be at the Youth House Bromsgrove Street, Kidderminster at 7pm this evening. All welcome, come and see what we are doing and get involved. Refreshments as usual and discussion of latest news and future events.
Tomorrow Saturday 14 May we will be having a LEAP work party in St George's Park come along and get involved with outdoor activities at this busy time of year, help establish the next phase of Let's Eat the Park Meet at the shelter 10am. New and old volunteers always welcome! Due to a whole load of reasons our monthly meeting which normally takes place on the first Friday of the month, has been rescheduled this month to the second Friday - 13th May at the Youth House, Bromsgrove Street (Lion Street entrance) Kidderminster town centre as usual. The meeting will start at the normal time of 7pm, refreshments are available - all members recent or not so recent are very welcome, also anybody interested in getting involved in one of our projects please come along and meet us then. New Notice Board in St George's Church, Radford Avenue - Publicising LEAP
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Friends of St George's ParkWe are an active community group that is committed to working with others in order to further develop and improve St George's Park in Kidderminster for all of the community to enjoy. Tell people about usRespectWe welcome different ideas and opinions on how to improve our park and we hope you will share yours with us. Please remember this is a community based website and whilst we will not censor different opinions we will remove any posts that are offensive or abusive. Archives
November 2022
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