Friends of Burgess Park

Greg Smith’s meadow blog

The third instalment of the blog by Greg Smith, Burgess Park’s head gardener is now online. 

Very sadly, Greg died at the beginning of December. We, the Friends of Burgess Park will miss him very much. He was a great friend to the Friends.

In his blog, he has extended his research into the care and improvement of the park’s meadows, in particular the wild flora. Many of Greg’s photos are included.

As well as documenting his own experience, he was keen to develop the meadows in the future and encouraged us all to appreciate and take care of our environment.

Woodlands maintenance

Enjoy the winter in Burgess Park woodlands

Friday 6 December 2024, 10 – 11:30 am
Albany Road woodlands

Our first event was in Albany Road woodlands clearing bramble and buddleia from a site which was reseeded earlier this year for a glade and wild flower meadow. This was a project with Big City Butterflies to support Burgess Park butterflies.

The session was led by Liam Nash, Southwark Council ecologist.

More woodland maintenance activity for early 2025 will follow soon.

SCJC tree talk and quiz

Monday 9 December 7 – 9 pm
Pembroke House, 80 Tatum Street SE17 1QR

Join Southwark Climate Justice Coalition for a tree talk and quiz on Monday 9 December 7-9 pm.

The tree talk is by Joseph Arrowsmith, Southwark Council’s ecologist.

The coalition brings together groups from across Southwark who are active on climate issues. This end of year event is a chance to catch-up and celebrate. All welcome.

Register here on Eventbrite for the event.

Wreath making in Burgess Park

Wreath Making Poster from Art in the Park

Sat 14 December 2 – 4 pm
Art in the Park, Chumleigh Gardens

The very popular annual wreath making event is back at the Art in the Park studio, Chumleigh Gardens, SE5 0RJ.

Greenery and wreath materials from Burgess Park.

FOBP AGM

was held on Tuesday 5 November at 1st Place Nursery, Chumleigh Gardens

Liam Nash the borough ecologist spoke about the ecology of Burgess Park. Liam’s presentation can be seen here. He discussed possible plans for the park regarding the woodlands, freshwater, meadows and scrub.

Southwark Cycle Fest

Image of children cycling and logos for Streets For People, JoyRiders, Southwark Council

in Burgess Park next to the BMX track
was held on Sunday, 29th September 2024

See photos from the event.

This event was led by Southwark Council to showcase the cycling initiatives available across the borough. This is part of Southwark’s Streets for People strategy: the Council’s plans to improve walking, wheeling and cycling.

  • JoyRiders led rides—to book please visit eventbrite.co.uk for a free family, road bike ride
  • Community Cycle Works Bike Fix will check bikes for free
  • Peddle My Wheels Bike Market, OurBike: browse affordable second-hand bikes or take advantage of free 3 month bike hire
  • Cargo bikes and Try Before You Bike vouchers
  • BetterPoints app—earn points through active travel
  • The Met Police offered free bike marking and security advice; activities for the children
  • St John’s Ambulance First Aid interactive activities
  • Public Health Bus—information and support with a range of free health checks.

Friends of Burgess Park were there to discuss cycling around the park.

Cycling training in Burgess Park

Free women cycle sessions in September run by Joyriders Britain. Book tickets on Eventbrite. Learn to ride, gain confidence, bikes to borrow.

Woodlands trail

We have updated the signage for the Friends of Burgess Park Woodland Trail. Most of the signs are in but a few more will go in soon. 

Many thanks to James Gribble for the design and production of the signs.

Southwark News reported on the development of the trail which was created by local volunteers.

The route leads walkers through patches of wild carrot, plum trees, sometimes clouds of speckled butterflies, hidden fox burrows and much more.

Look out for our wooden woodland markers throughout Burgess Park and follow them on the trail through the woodlands.

Scan the QR codes on each with the camera on your smartphone and find out interesting facts about the woodlands and the history of the area.

You will even find a different animal on each sign – the QR code will show you a short fact about the animal you have found!

The Friends of Burgess Park hope the path will promote the park as a place for exploration and connection with nature.

FOBP will be running a woodland winter maintenance activity soon.

Healthy woodlands survey
Saturday 26th March 2024

Friends of Burgess Park hosted an event in Burgess Park led by Alastair McKinlay from TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) on assessing woodland condition.

This was a practical hands-on session using the newly-developed assessment template developed by TCV and London Wildlife for London-wide work on woodlands.

Dawn chorus walk
Friday 29 March 2024

Hear the birdsong early in the morning (6 to 7:30 am) on a walk to help identify the many species in the park. This event will be led by local ornithologist Dave Clark who does a seasonal bird count for Burgess Park. More information on Eventbrite.

Birdwatching in Burgess Park

Close-up on Burgess Lake, Southwark, London
Great Crested Grebe
(Laura Kor)

A hugely enjoyable guided walk took place on 27 Jan 2024 when 39 species were seen or heard on a stroll around a variety of habitats. The loud, distinctive call of a Cetti’s Warbler, a Song Thrush singing beautifully and a sighting of a Greenfinch were some of the highlights. 

The annual RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) Central London Local Group’s January walk in Burgess Park was led by two of its members, Dave Clark and Czech Conroy, and was co-organised with the Friends of Burgess Park. Read the fascinating blog by Czech Conroy and Alison Gibson describing the discoveries on the walk with great pictures by Laura Kor and the list of bird species compiled by Tom Rogers.

Burgess Park woodlands activities winter/spring 2024

Butterfly habitat management project in the Albany Road woodlands

Woodland areas indicated on Burgess Park map

On Saturday 27 Jan 2024, our woodlands maintenance volunteers were clearing brambles and coppicing to enhance the glade in the Albany Road woodlands. This was the first phase of the works organised by Southwark Council.

The second phase will be run by Big City Butterfly Project who will employ a contractor to de-turf, remove roots and sow the area with a meadow mix within the glade FOBP are creating.

This is part of the Friends of Burgess Park healthy woodlands project. We have also been awarded funding from the Southwark Council Cleaner Greener Safer fund for a new pathway. Read more about the woodlands in Burgess Park.

Flowering meadow

The Head Gardener of Burgess Park, Gregory Smith and his team have been developing a flowering meadow along Albany Road. His latest blog describes sowing seed in the area and what has resulted. “We can introduce a wider range of wild native plants by sowing seed, but often nature knows best and will try to find its own natural balance of plants over time … so then our job is to gently adjust this balance so it remains suitable for a busy park.” 

To mow or not to mow

Photo of different lengths of grass

Gregory Smith, Head Gardener of Burgess Park has written about being a gardener and an environmentalist. He is concerned with what grows naturally, as well as which human-planted or sown, native or non-native plants can be added in order to create more diversity, food sources and habitat for wildlife. With a multi-layered approach to grass cutting, all kinds of wild plants can appear and lawns can become useful habitats. These will link all the intentional planting in the park to create a more complete ecology. Find out more about what the gardeners have been doing and experimenting with by reading his blog on making meadows.

Friends of Burgess Park heritage website logo

Follow this link to read more about the Grand Surrey Canal on the Friends of Burgess Park heritage website: Bridge to Nowhere. Recently, Southwark News featured comments from our heritage website in their article about the canal before it was filled in in the 1970s and the traces of it that are still left.

Old sepia image of the library and overwritten with event details

Celebration 26 March 2023
Passmore Edwards bicentenary

Celebrate the Grade II listed building and its benefactor Passmore Edwards

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Passmore Edwards’ birth on 24th March 1823 and Friends of Burgess Park are joining with others around the UK to celebrate the Passmore Edwards 200 Festival. We’ll be holding a programme of events based at the old library, baths and washhouse on Wells Way on Sunday 26th March. There’s an exhibition about the man and his legacy, children’s activities, a commemorative tree-planting, a reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book, refreshments and more.

Bike Tour 2–4pm We’ve also organised a short Bike Tour around three of Passmore Edwards’ south London buildings, guided by a renowned local architect. You can book now for the bike tour 2pm to 4pm on Eventbrite – places are limited to 25, so book early!

Commemorative Tree Planting 4.00–4.30pm Across the country Rowan trees are being planted to celebrate the Passmore Edwards bicentenary. Join us from 4pm for the tree planting and reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book Fire Rush, and refreshments.

Exhibition 1–5.30pm – Find out more about Passmore Edwards with an exhibition on loan from the Passmore Edwards legacy. Plus more about the old library bath and washhouse building, its history and future role, benefitting local people.

Read more about Passmore Edwards and the library on the Bridge to Nowhere Friends of Burgess Park heritage website.

More about the Passmore Edwards celebration in Burgess Park on the Southwark News website.

The Woodland project

Friends of Burgess Park held a 12 day long festival to launch the Burgess Park Woodland in 2023, a project aiming to improve our woodland through better management and community engagement.

On Saturday 26 September the festival launched with the Albany woodlands pop-up walk and family woodland arts at Chumleigh Gardens playground.

Tackling litter

Michael Faraday primary school art work for anti-litter banners
Thank you Year 3 pupils (summer 2022) and for helping litterpic. See the banners in Albany Road near Giraffe House and Wells Way near the old library.

Anti-litter poster
Anti-litter poster

FOBP weekly litterpic every Monday morning 8am to 9am 

FOBP provide litterpicks, gloves and bags. 
Meet at Chumleigh Gardens – in the gardens behind the behind the cafe.

Woodlands wildlife

FOBP members receiving the award
Friends of Burgess Park received a Highly commended London Urban Forest Award

Highly Commended Our woodlands campaign to protect Southampton Way woodlands against development pressure was highly commended with a London Urban Forest Award at the London Tree and Woodland Awards 2022. Thanks to all local groups and park users who have supported us.

The Awards ( #TreeOscars) are organised by the Forestry Commission and supported by the Mayor of London. They aim to raise the profile of London’s trees and woodlands and their need for active management. The awards showcase the work taking place all over the city to protect and increase London’s urban forest (urban forestry guidance). 

Southwark Civic Awards for FOBP:
Mayor’s Discretionary Award 2022  

Southwark Mayor Hargrove awards Friends of Burgess Park a civic award
Mayor Hargrove with Friends of Burgess Park

Thank you Southwark Mayor Cllr Barrie Hargrove for the 2022 Discretionary Award for Friends of Burgess Park’s “ongoing and successful commitment … thinking of the park’s welfare first and foremost” presented at Southwark Cathedral.

Massive thanks to all our volunteers, past, present, and more importantly, future ones. Join us!

Find out more about events in Burgess Park.

New Aylesbury buildings drawingEvents to discuss the Aylesbury Regeneration

Plans are being developed for the regeneration of Phase 2B of the Aylesbury Estate on Albany Road next to Burgess Park, the area that includes the Wendover 241-471, Winslow, Padbury and Ravenstone blocks.


Public open day

Saturday 16 October 2021, 12 noon – 3pm
Surrey Square Primary School, Surrey Square, London SE17 2JY

Drop in any time to meet the team, view updated designs in a family-friendly environment and give your feedback on plans for Phase 2B of the estate regeneration. Members of the design team, Notting Hill Genesis and Soundings will be on hand to listen to  feedback and answer questions. This event is free and open to all.

Drop in exhibition and stakeholder evening workshop
Monday 18 October 2021
Drop in exhibition 4-6pm; workshop 6-8pm
Upper Hall, Pembroke House, 80 Tatum Street, London SE17 1QR

Drop in to view the plans between 4-6pm. An early evening workshop will discuss public space, access and circulation.
Email aylesbury@nhg.org.uk or call 07920 466133 if you would like to take part.

Online public workshop
Tuesday 26 October 2021, 6-7.30pm
An online evening to discuss the revised plans.
Email aylesbury@nhg.org.uk or call 07920 466133 to take part.

Congratulations to Kye Whyte at Peckham BMX

Kye Whyte won a siver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Many congratulations to him, his family and Peckham BMX Club.

The Peckham Club started at the Bird-in-Bush park track and then moved to the Burgess Park track.

Find out about riding at the Burgess Park track.

Information about the Peckham Challengers BMX Club.

Help protect the woodland in Burgess Park

woodland pathBurgess Park’s woodlands are vital for local wildlife and they are a precious resource in an urban area. Current plans for tall buildings on the edge of the woodlands will reduce the sunlight and change the habitat.

To understand what impact tall buildings would have, we need an independent wildlife report to present to Southwark’s Planning Committee. The goal is to raise £1500 by the end of May 2021 to commission an ecology report from the London Wildlife Trust. Find out more and make a Crowdfunder contribution here. 

Read the blog about the importance of light for the Burgess Park woodlands.

Photo of Great TitAnnual bird count from your home

Unable to run our usual annual bird count in the park due to current restrictions, we explain how you can still get involved from home with the RSPB survey, as well as identify bird songs, and take a soundscape walk around the park. Find out more.

Southhampton Way entrance with building or wildlfe graphic

 

Sign the petition to stop building in Burgess Park

The Southampton Way entrance to Burgess Park has an area of derelict land used for what was supposed to be temporary scrap yards and car washing.

The land has been designated as part of the protected Metropolitan Open Land of Burgess Park for over 30 years as the council steadily CPO’d (Compulsory Purchased) the various bits of privately owned land selected to be a park in the original Abercrombie Plan after WW2.

However, a developer has bought an option on the site and is suggesting that a 6-storey residential tower-block be built on designated park land.

It is crucial that this land which has been blighted for so long, be landscaped and included in the park next to the recently improved wildlife site.

Please sign the petition calling on Southwark Council to oppose any planning application for building on this site and call on them instead to fulfill their promise to CPO and incorporate this piece of the Burgess Park jigsaw.

Photo of three houses with posterPark art tour

Take a walk, virtual or real, around Burgess Park to view artworks that have been placed here over the years. The Park Art map can be found on the Friends of Burgess Park’s Bridge to Nowhere heritage website which investigates the history of the park that emerged from the streets of south London.

Photo of Gull on sandGulls on the lake

Take a  look at the lake during the winter when the number of gulls and cormorants increases. Identify four different kinds of Gull.

Artist's render of proposed skatebowlUrban games and skate bowl consultations

The urban games and skatebowl website consultation is open to 4 October 2019.  Find out more and add your comments.

The concrete skate bowl will take over a section of the park next to the BMX track  and unfortunately an estimated 3,000 square meters of grass will be lost due to its construction. Friends of Burgess Park object to the replacement of a green area with concrete, one of the worst producers of CO2 . This is the narrowest part of the park, which has been traversed with paths and cycle routes, with tall buildings planned to the north and possibly south, pouring concrete all over it is not an improvement. It is in fact turning this green area into an urban environment not a refuge from it.

Southwark Streetspace MapHave you had your say on the Southwark Council
Streetspace plan yet?

Some ideas are already being implemented and Friends of Burgess Park were out looking at opportunities to improve active travel around the park.

FOBP park orbital teamWe are promoting the Burgess Park Orbital, a protected route, to take cyclists who want to travel securely and efficiently around the park through the neighbourhood so they don’t have to cross the park. The park is very busy at the moment with people socialising and exercising. Some cyclists simply want a straightforward way to get to the other side without interfering in park activities. Some want another place to exercise. Some want an alternative to cycling through the park in the dark winter months.

Using routes around the perimeter means that there will be adequate street lighting rather than trying to light the park and contributing to light pollution which must be controlled according to the National Policy Planning Framework (NPPF).

Click the links below and give each a thumbs up, bottom right.
Let’s show support to get these improvements.

Burgess Park Orbital
1. Cycle lanes around Burgess Park using street lighting.

Albany Road
2. Cycle lanes at Albany Road and the Old Kent Road.
3. 2-way protected cycle route the full length of Albany Road.

Albany Road and Portland Street
4. Adapt the cycle crossing from Portland Street into Albany Road to 2-way and on to Wells Way.

New Church Road/Southampton Way
5. Reinstate the existing cycle route by the new playground from Kitson Rd and continue it down Southampton Way.

Wells Way
6. Wells Way cycle lane and widen pavements.
7. Wells Way underpass for pedestrians and St George’s Way junction.
8. Provide cycle parking at the Old Library instead of car parking.
9. Pavements too narrow at junction of Wells Way and St George’s Way

Parkhouse Street/Wells Way
10. 2-way cycle routes on Parkhouse Street.

Burgess Park West
11. Burgess Park West.

St. George’s Way
12. Remove cars on St George’s Way and green route for cycling.
13. Provide cycle lanes which use street lighting for safe winter cycling.

Surrey Canal
14. Surrey Canal too narrow; promote Sumner Road cycle lane alternative
15. Peckham Square for pedestrians; promote Sumner Road cycle lane alternative

park clean-up volunteerLitter-free Mondays and Thursdays July – September

Weekly litter pick  Mondays 7:30-9.30am and Thursdays  6:15-8pm July to September 2020. Meet at the picnic benches at Chumleigh Gardens. Gloves and litter pickers provided or bring your own.
More information here. 
Read the blog.

Photo of Grebe swimmingLaunch of Southwark nature action conservation volunteers

Dave Clark provided online training in recognising birdsong. He has an MSc in Ornithology from Birmingham University and is particularly interested in the interaction between birds and humans. Read his blog about birds in Burgess Park From Africa to the Old Kent Road and follow him on Twitter @daveclark77.

Burgess Park contains a mosaic of locally important habitats including areas of rough grass, wildflower ‘meadows’, hedges and patches of bushes, scrub and trees; and a lake and some small ponds with reeds.

Regular visitors include House Martins, Swifts, Blackcaps, Reed Warblers and Whitethroats. Other birds include House Sparrow, Starling, Greenfinch, and typical garden species like the Robin and Blue Tit. The lake has several different species of waterbirds, including three species of geese – Canada, Egyptian and Greylag.

Tuesday 3 March 2020, 7pm, Theatre Deli, Wells Way SE5 Book ticket.

white letter hairstreakHelp with species’ habitats and nature conservation in Southwark parks: carry out surveys, help with planting, dig ponds, map wildlife sightings to target habitat action, photograph wildlife and habitats etc.

Launch event includes talks from Simon Saville, Butterfly Conservation and Jon Best, Southwark Ecology Officer, films and discussions. Find out more.

Come along to the Big Garden Birdwatch

Big Bird Watch 2020at Chumleigh Gardens
on 
Sunday 26 January 2020
11 am – 12 midday

All ages welcome
Free event
Free bird ID sheet

Hot drinks and cake

Identifying wildlife at Burgess Lake

We put up signage at the lake and on the bridge about the waterfowl and fish in the lake. We hope this will help park users know more about wild-fowl, fish and plants and how the lake works as a habitat.

Lake signage

Find out more about what Friends of Burgess Park have been doing at the lake with help from children at Cobourg School.

Friends of Burgess Park AGM

Tuesday 12 November 2019 7 pm
at Theatre Deli, Old Library, Wells Way, SE5 0PX

All welcome to hear about Burgess Park Past, Present and Future

Speakers, Q&A:
Diana Cochrane, Walworth History Society, Burgess Park and Beyond heritage
Jason Leech, Camberwell Society, Camberwell plan
Guy Robinson, Camberwell Fields Residents’ Association, Metropolitan Open Land
Plus: Elect new committee, approve accounts, review constitution, priorities 2020.

October monthly meeting changed

The next FOBP meeting 1st October  2019 is being transferred to the council planning committee so that we can comment on and object to the sports centre application. The planning meeting is open to the public Tues 1 October from 6.30pm, 160 Tooley St. SE1 2QX. Planning committee agenda and report.

The planning committee meeting was cancelled at the last minute because a report from Sport England had not arrived. The next Planning Sub-Committee B meeting is now scheduled for Tue 29 Oct 2019 (to be confirmed). 

FOBP objections:
1. Loss of Metropolitan Open Land
2. Impact of the new pitches and spectator mounds on the surrounding park.
3. The design of the new sports centre does not fit with the character of the park or the Cobourg conservation area, or achieve environmental standards.

Wild Burgess: birds, butterflies, moths and crows

Photo of pale blue butterflyFind out about the latest wildlife sightings in Burgess Park. Ornithologist Dave Clark is thrilled to find more Burgess birds than 10 years ago.  Guest blogger Simon Savile of the Butterfly Conservation organisation tells us where to look for butterflies and moths in Burgess Park. Regular FOBP blogger Jenny Morgan urges us to appreciate crows and the more subtle changes in the park.

Poster for 6 June 2019 3:30 pm lake activities

From Africa to the Old Kent Road: Bird species in Burgess Park
Wednesday 19 June 2019, 9 am – 10.30 am
meet at Chumleigh Gardens

Dave Clark, ornithologist, will lead the circular walk (approx 1.3 hrs) finishing at Chumleigh Gardens café for further informal discussion. FREE – Donations to FOBP welcome. Read Dave Clark’s blog

Read about Burgess Park in the Camberwell Quarterly

sample CQ pageFOBP members toured the park with Marie Staunton CBE who wrote the article. Thank you to the editor of the Camberwell Quarterly, Margaret Powley-Baker for letting us include a copy here – From dawn to dusk – Something’s going on in Burgess Park.

It gives a tremendous picture of the park from the Community Garden at one end to the tennis courts at the other celebrating the wide range of activities in-between – rugby, BMX, children’s nurseries, play groups, art clubs, theatre groups to name a few. It is all enabled by park workers and many dedicated volunteers.

2019 Development planning

Southwark Council is holding the next Old Kent Road Forum on open space on Saturday 19 January 2019 from 11am to 1pm at Christ Church Peckham, 676-680 Old Kent Road, SE15 1JF

Sports Hub consultation
20 November 2018

Help shape the future of Burgess Park – Southwark Council wants your views on the sports centre hub. Come along to the drop-in session (20 November) between 4–7pm at the Burgess Park Sports Centre SE5, or have your say online.

Report wildlife sightings

screen grab of the wildlife report pageLondon is home to a diverse range of animals, including everything from bats to reptiles, and Southwark Council is trying to find out which species can be found where in Southwark.

On the Council website you can click on an interactive map, zoom to the location of your sighting and an email link will appear on the left. Enter your email address and click send.

Your records will help the Council to manage wildlife in Southwark and gain a better understanding of what lives where.

Sightings will be collected and shared with the London Biological Records Centre, Greenspace Information for Greater London (GiGL).

Peckham BMX club in Burgess Park

CK Flash with brothers Tre and Kye Whyte were interviewed by the BBC about the value and benefits of the BMX club. See the BBC video shot at the track in Burgess Park. The brothers are both in the British Cycling Academy and Kye just won silver at the 2018 European Championships.

New art installation “Silent Raid” opening events

Photo of three houses with posterWednesday, 17 October
The new art work by Sally Hogarth commemorates the Zeppelin raid on Calmington Road (now part of Burgess Park) in 1917 with ten houses representing each of the people killed in the attack. Read Sally Hogarth’s blog on creating the sculptures.

The launch will be exactly 101 years after the attack and is part of the Zeppelin 1917 programme of events in Burgess Park about the First World War.

Location map of the sculptures and more information.

Supported by Southwark Council, the Friends of Burgess Park and Theatre Deli.
Photos of the sculptures by Alexander Christie   Instagram   Twitter

Friends of Burgess Park win Mary Boast History Prize

We had great news on 30th September 2018! The Mary Boast Prize, which is organised by the Camberwell Society, has been won by an essay from some of the Friends of Burgess Park ‘Zeppelin 1917’ team. A big thank you to all the volunteer authors including the essay editing team of Judith Barratt, Joan Ashworth and Susan Crisp. Find out more here.

First World War Victoria Cross commemorative stone unveiling

Monday 3 September 2018, 11am, Old Kent Road entrance, Burgess Park

In September 1918 local hero Jack Harvey was awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery. One hundred years on a commemorative paving stone will be unveiled with a civic service led by the Mayor, Councillor Catherine Rose, with the Army in attendance. All welcome.

Jack Harvey, was born at 2 Canal Grove (just off Old Kent Road) in the old borough of Camberwell. This is why the site chosen for the commemorative paving will be the Old Kent Road main entrance to Burgess Park.

The Victoria Cross commemorative paving stones programme is a national scheme that will see all 627 VC recipient of the First World War commemorated. More information.

More development plans around the park:

  1. Southwark Council is holding the next Old Kent Road Forum  on Saturday 20 October from 11am to 1pm at Christ Church Peckham, 676-680 Old Kent Road, SE15 1JF
    The theme for this forum will be Transport with ward councillors – Evelyn Akoto, Michael Situ and Richard Livingstone and Johnson Situ (Cabinet Member for Growth, Development and Planning). Find out more about the development schemes in Old Kent Road.
  2. Burgess Business Park/Camberwell Union Update Peachtree (the developers) have amended their proposals following community objections and discussions with Southwark Council Planning. The revised planning application is open for comments.  The key documents showing the changes and draft FOBP response here. To put in your comments go to the planning application 17/AP/4797  by 21 October. More information
  3. 37-39 Parkhouse Street (Hunnex site) is a proposed mixed use scheme of commercial rented accommodation including on-site 50% affordable housing.  This substantial site backs onto Burgess Park.
  4. Old Kent Road redevelopment continues with plans for the ARGOS and DFS site opposite Burgess Park OKR entrance. Details of proposals include a hotel, cinema commercial, tall private block and rented housing. Comments wanted by the end of July for a planning application in the autumn.

Zeppelin – the podcast

Graphic of Zeppelin over cityWe are pleased to announce the publication of the latest edition of the Bridge to Nowhere podcast!

This episode is an audio adaptation of the Animated Walk from the Friends’ Zeppelin 1917 season which ran throughout October 2017. It tells the story of the Zeppelin Raid on Camberwell, in the industrial and residential area that existed before the creation of the park itself, and puts the tragic events of that night into the context of local life at that time.

And if you subscribe (it’s free), you will also receive future episodes automatically, as soon as they are released.

photo of fish just caught in the lakeWild Burgess at the Fishing Lake

What is going on above and below the lake? Find out more about the plants, insects, birds and fish.

 

Photo of Lime blossomWild Burgess in May

Any day now, the Lime trees (Common Lime or Linden, Tilia Europea) will come into bloom. They perfume the air with one of the most delightful scents of summer. Walk along the main avenue by the tennis courts … Read more about the flowers, the butterflies and bogs of Burgess.

Parent Egyptian goose with chicksBurgess goes wild about waterfowl

Despite the terrible weather (28 April 2018) the Friends of Burgess Park were out at the lake finding out how much people knew about the birds on the lake; their names; what they eat and the problems of feeding bread to the ducks. Read about the birds we saw and counted and what we should be feeding them.

The identification session was part of the international City Nature Challenge with 70 cities  competing to see who could make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in the worldwide 2018 City Nature Challenge.

Unleash your wild side

Find out more about the wildlife in Burgess Park over the next few months.

All through June we are doing #30DaysWild #wildaboutburgess part of the London Wildlife campaign. The perfect excuse to share your favourite photos @BurgessPk.

Saturday 21 July – 4.30 to 6pm Pond-dipping by the lake. Part of London’s National Park City Week.

Photo of Albany Road and Wells WayGoing wild

Find out what to look for as spring comes to Burgess Park – the sights, sounds and scents.

Community Hustings on planning and regeneration

Monday 22nd October 2018 7-9pm
Assemble from 6.45pm at St Philips Church Hall, Avondale Square, SE1 5PD, near Asda on Old Kent Rd.
Help to improve existing neighbourhoods and existing communities’ health and wellbeing.
* Cllr Rebecca Lury, Council deputy leader and Cabinet member for
Culture, Leisure, Equalities and Communities
* Cllr Johnson Situ, Cabinet Member for Growth, Development and Planning
* Professor Kevin Fenton, Strategic Director of Place and Wellbeing, the
Chief Officer for the new Council department, which has brought together
planning, regeneration, public health and community engagement.
Please register through eventbrite here: https://bit.ly/2KYEA1M
Organised by the Southwark Planning Network (SPN)

Park developmentsBurgess Park developments map

Find out more about developments planned in and around Burgess Park

Burgess Park South

Burgess Park South map

Southwark Council are looking at ways to improve the streets south of Burgess Park, with a view to making the area safer and healthier for all road users.

Workshops to help Southwark design the future look and feel of these streets.

  • Session 1: Tuesday 30 January 6pm
  • Session 2: Tuesday 13 February from 3pm
  • Session 3: Wednesday 21 March from 5.30pm to 8pm

At St Luke’s Church Peckham, Chandler Way, Peckham, London, SE15 6LU.

First session: for residents and road users to tell us what the issues are in these streets.

Second session: Walking tour of the area to look at the some of the issues identified and co-design workshop where residents will work with a specialist street design team to come up with ideas for improving the roads.

Third session:  local people will have a chance to comment on the design proposals and help make further changes.

Further information, or contact highways@southwark.gov.uk, call 020 7525 2347, or write to FREEPOST RSCT-BHXK-SCAJ, Highways Division (Transport Projects) Floor 3, Hub 2, Southwark Council, PO BOX 64529, London, SE1P 5LX.

Revised plans for the Burgess Park Community Sports Centre Jan 2018New sports centre and pitches consultation

Thursday 11 January 2018, 4.00 -7.00pm
at Burgess Park Community Sports Centre, Cobourg Road, SE5 0JD

Southwark Council with match funding from Parklife Funding Partners (The FA, the Premier League and Sport England) are presenting draft design proposals for developing the community sports hub . Who will run the new facility? Will there be more fencing of sports’ fields? Will Cobourg Road and Neate Street be closed? What will the provision be for access to Cobourg School? Will there be through routes for pedestrians and cyclists? What about parking? Will  trees be cut down? Please come along and say what you think about the new plans.  Download a pdf of the latest plans. Email your comments to Southwark by 19 January 2018.

Zeppelin Memorial Artist's ImpressionWWI Centenary Memorial 

A new public art installation is being planned for Burgess Park. Ten small replica houses will be placed close to the site of the 1917 Zeppelin bomb. More details and locations are on the application for planning permission.
Friends of Burgess Park Zeppelin 1917 project.

 

Burgess Park West closures

New Church Road is being permanently closed from 4 December as part of the Burgess Park West project. Lighting on New Church Road is being switched off as well as the lighting on the pathway that leads from Albany Road to New Church Road. This is for safety reasons as Southwark do not want people to follow a lit route from Albany Road into the park since it is a dead end. Southwark urge you not to travel through the park after dark until the new lit pathway is open. The new Quietway 7 cycle pathway which will cut through the park will be built as an alternative route. It is expected to open in spring 2018.

Two sections of Burgess Park West designated on a mapThe plan shows which areas of the site Southwark intend to close and for how long. Read more about the closures here.

Trees earmarked for removal in Site A (see map) will be felled in the week starting February 5th.

This is the latest stage in the implementation of the Burgess Park Masterplan. More information on the project can be found here: www.southwark.gov.uk/burgessparkwest or contact John Wade (020 7525 0141) or Pippa Krishnan (020 7525 5133).

Consultations on the Burgess Park West new play area will take place on:

Tuesday 28 November 3.30 to 5pm Chumleigh Gardens play area, next to the Park Life café, off Albany Road. If the weather is poor the consultation will be inside the Chumleigh West building, which will be signposted from the play area.

Monday 4th December 6pm to 8pm Southwark Council’s offices 160 Tooley Street, SE1 2QH

Drop by to see the emerging design which has taken into account previous consultation results, and tell the designers your ideas and opinions.

If you cannot attend either session and are still interested in the play area design, please get in touch with Pippa Krishnan pippa.krishnan@southwark.gov.uk

Burgess Park Cafe catering arrangementsBurgess Park Café

A new catering company will be taking over Burgess Park Café.  The café will be closed on Monday and Tuesday, 30 and 31 October 2017. Southwark Council apologise for the inconvenience and thank Prestigious Catering Ltd trading as Park Life Café who will cease operations on Sunday, 29 October 2017. A Fuorvito & Sons will take over on Wednesday, 1 November 2017.

Friends of Burgess Park Meetings

First Tuesday of each month
All welcome from 7-9 pm
Burgess Park Community Sports Centre, 106 Cobourg Road, SE5 0JV.

Bridge to Nowhere history project 

The Bridge to Nowhere heritage project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund involved loads of people to learn more about the history and heritage of Burgess Park. The project included the Wells Way underpass artwork – a reminder of the main feature of the area which lead to the creation of the park – the Grand Surrey Canal. And we have launched the new Burgess Park Heritage Trail. Look out for the blue plaques around the park.

Find out more about the history of the park and
download your own map 

Bridge to Nowhere - long logo

Making meadows part 3

Sowing and mowing

by Greg Smith, Head Gardener, Burgess Park 23/11/24

Links below to further sections of the blog:

Maintaining meadows
Making meadows
Moving meadows
Scraping meadows
Waiting meadows
Mowing and growing
Nitrogen fixing legumes
Nutrient attracting soil
Climate in central London
Current flora
Meadow mania
Turf wars
An evolved system of maintenance

Across our parks and recreational green spaces, 
in seed or roots in the soil,
carried in by the wind or water,
by wild animals or us by accident, 
or already growing amongst
the plants we strive to cultivate,
are the wild flora!

Here are the wild plants and other green organisms that sustain our wildlife, what remains of it, what it is evolving into, networks of fungi and bacteria and all kinds of microscopic life in the soil, water and air, all around and within us.

 We see ourselves as separate from the wildness, but truthfully we are part of nature; we just influence the natural world to the point where we describe our civilisation as artificial, and the remaining wildness as natural. In fact, we are part of a natural system that must remain in balance to persist, and we evolve in symbiosis with all the other life. All organisms are connected, in the sense that the behaviour of each individual organism affects everything else, like infinite ripples across water.

Photo of Rose Chafers by Gregory Smith
Rose chafers (Cetonia aurata) on wild carrot (Daucus carrota

 We can consider ourselves as individual entities, or, instead, as though we have individual sentience. Our brains are also a sensory apparatus connected to a far more profound and communal intelligence that connects all life, like a swarm of bees with a greater intelligence than its individual parts. 

We could see all the negative characteristics of our communal personality: fear, hate, ignorance and destruction of the planet as a disease that needs to be removed as quickly as possible. Of course, the positive characteristics of our communal nature involve the opposite, evolving in the most calm, balanced and diverse way possible whilst protecting the rest of nature as much as we can.

Photo of a bee on a flower by Gregory Smith
Honey bee (Apis mellifera) on chicory (Chicorium intybus)

With our position at the top of the evolutionary tree, it is is difficult to define what is ‘natural’ in a park in terms of everything else not being influenced artificially in some way, due to our human presence. Everything in the world is influenced by us, even the few places that humans have never set foot on.

Maps of Britain and Europe showing areas of glaciation at 20,000 BC, land between Britain and Europe called Doggerland at 5,00 BC and the maritime area which now exists.
The creation of the British Isles.
Maps by Francis Lima, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

See more information about Doggerland: National Geographic Doggerland resources.

The last ice age finished 12,000 years ago, and then over the next six thousand years the modern wild flora of the UK became established as the low-lying land connecting our islands to mainland Europe flooded. Much of the land would have been mixed woodland, with birch, pine, hazel, aspen, and elm, and would have probably have been dominated by oak.

Animals such as wild deer and oxen would have been plentiful then, with their grazing and movement creating a tapestry of woodland and more open grassy areas. So perhaps we could say that the first meadows in the UK were maintained by wild herds of animals foraging for food! 

The excellent articles below describe the lowering percentage of woodland and increased amount of meadows over time as agriculture evolved in the UK:
Royal Forestry Society’s History of British Woodlands
English Heritage’s History of Meadows

Most of the woodland was removed. This was mostly replaced by semi-wild meadows, to keep animals, make hay, and increasingly grow cereal and other crops. Now, most of the meadows have been replaced by far more intensive crop and livestock production. Less than five per cent of our woodlands and only a few percent of our hay meadows remain. 

There are few truly wild meadows in the UK that sustain themselves without human maintenance. These are marshy wetland areas, coastal salt marshes, or in exposed and inaccessible places on steep hill side or valleys, or on mountainsides, where there is only a thin layer of soil above the underlying rock.

Without large amounts of wild grazing animals, meadows are kept by human management. The wildflower meadows of the UK evolved in symbiosis with the humans and the livestock sustaining them. Also, there is also now huge pressure on farmland to be productive enough to grow sufficient crops, but this has led to an industrial type of farming which is very environmentally destructive, with huge fields of single crops, massive chemical use and a rapid degradation of the soil, leading to increasing fertiliser dependency.

But now, more sustainable approaches are being developed to make these modern crop and livestock growing systems more useful for wildlife. These involve crop rotation, keeping the soil planted with living roots constantly in the soil, reconnecting crop and animal farming, using green manures, less watering, fewer chemicals – or none, renovating old-fashioned meadows or having boundaries between crops for wildflowers. 

Burgess Park is a recently re-built space which is still being developed, and which, even before the recent renovations, grew in stages out of industrial land and dense housing. 

Before this, it must have been open, marshy, arable land. 

from the collections of the National Library of the Netherlands
17th Century London!
Wencesclaus Hollar, others, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

We can imagine the area over which the park now lies as once being a marshy mosaic of farmed land. First, the marsh land would have been drained, for agriculture and then buildings.

Perhaps wild-growing plants could have even survived from before the various stages of development, or before the park or even London existed – in seeds or plant material already in the soil!

From long before even this time, seeds and plant remains have been found in the ancient London clay, deposited thirty to fifty million years ago. Plant and seed remains have been found in this ancient mud which are much closer genetically to tropical plants from far away than the flora we recognise today.

We could define the truly wild plants as those that sustain themselves in our landscape and create offspring without human soil cultivation and weeding. But nearly all vegetation is organised artificially and managed in some way,  however minimally – not just in our park but in all accessible green space in the UK. For example, the cornfield annuals so popular in mixed wild flower packets evolved in sync with the cereal crops and cultivated soil they grew in.

EAW000540 ENGLAND (1946). The Grand Surrey Canal, housing and cleared area on the site of what is now Burgess Park and environs, Walworth, from the south-west, 1946. Copyright Historic England
The canal running through what is now Burgess Park, 1946.
Copyright Historic England

Perhaps then the truly wild plants are simply those that exist in the park that we haven’t planted or sown intentionally. This is still confusing, because even much of what we describe as ‘native’ species have been sown from seed collected far away from London, or grown elsewhere. We reintroduce these plants. They are most suitable for our wildlife, and hopefully they will still be suitable for our inner-city climate. 

Are the offspring of these reintroduced plants now native plants again? What then about non-native species which we introduce from elsewhere in the world, and which happily naturalise and have offspring, or spread by their roots to grow alongside our native plants? How long do these immigrants have to wait before being accepted as citizens of the UK? 

Reveal any soil in the park, leave it bare, remove any plants, and perhaps cultivate the soil: a miracle occurs, despite the removal of all the visible life on the surface. First a few seedlings, and soon thick meadows; eventually shrubs and trees, from plant material in the soil or raining down from elsewhere in great quantities. Nature has a capacity to survive and regenerate, way beyond our own.

Print of Charles Darwin in his garden.
Charles Darwin and his gardener
by E. F. Sikinner, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1857, a chap called Charles cleared a small area of meadow of plants and roots, then observed what life re-emerged. He counted the emerging seedlings and recorded which survived over time, which were eaten or died of drought. 

From this and all kinds of other experiments he came up with all kinds of theories about evolution.

The Albany Road meadow was like a huge and much less precise version of this experiment – though we also added lots of fresh seed to the seed bank already present, to see which plants would eventually succeed. We then left many other areas uncut for longer periods or experimented with cutting times and amount of raking, to see what range of plants would grow with the turf layer still present. 

A recreation of Darwin’s seed garden experiment can be seen at his home, Down House. Read information about Darwin’s living laboratory and about conserving English meadows.

Maintaining meadows

As described above, there are few truly wild meadows found in places where humans aren’t cultivating the soil. For whatever reason, the shrubs and trees in these places don’t take over and herbaceous vegetation predominates.

With human-made meadows the general idea is of course to cut or graze a meadow at an appropriate frequency and time of year. Otherwise – unless conditions are specific enough for the meadow to persist naturally without cutting – it will perhaps soon turn from a meadow to shrubbery, and eventually to woodland.

Cutting involves removing as much material as possible, to lower nutrients, which ideally means a higher ratio of flowers and finer grasses can predominate, with a lower ratio of thicker grass and larger, more invasive herbaceous plants.

Photo of gardener by Gregory Smith
Raking the south banks with colleague Dave this March,
we were quite late this year but the chicory returned en masse!  
Photo of a field of flowers by Gregory Smith
The south bank of mound 3.

It would be nice to have other complementary colours of wild flowers to contrast with the blue, and to have more flowers throughout the day, as well as more diversity for a wider variety of pollinators – but these banks look fab compared with many of our other meadows. 

The cuttings are left temporarily for the seed to return to the soil. But then they need to be removed by raking or collecting in some way. This is easier after they’ve dried out.

Ideally the ‘thatch’ layer is removed, creating space between the grasses for other plants to grow, revealing bare soil that flower seeds, moisture and light can more easily reach, and preventing the thatch from composting down into the soil and increasing nutrients. Otherwise, a thick mat of dead material builds up that the grasses grow back through, creating thick tussocks. (But this is paradise for ants, grasshoppers, mice, even nesting wrens or larger birds looking for nesting material or mice).

Photo of a bank next to a park path by Gregory Smith

Left: Raking one of our west banks with HandsOn London. Below right: volunteers this spring, and the amount of ‘hay’ removed.

This is a relatively small bank compared with most of our meadow, but it still took two days to remove bramble and another day to strim. Then, twenty volunteers plus myself and fantastic HandsOn volunteer coordinator, Jon Meech, raked the cuttings after they had dried. It took another day to load all of this onto a van and remove for compost. This is one of the smaller banks! 

The cuttings would then become hay or straw, but at the park we can compost cuttings to use as a rough mulch around trees in wilder areas, or to rot down as compost if it is turned enough to heat up and kill unwanted plant fragments and seeds. 

Phot of the raked cuttings next to a park path by Gregory Smith

Traditional wheat/cereal meadows were re-cultivated/sown yearly for new crops, so they had a range of cornfield annuals which are popular and available today, often now mixed with short-lived, quick-flowering, non native-species and cultivars in different colour combos to extend the flowering seasons. The cornfield annuals grow fast, to flower before the crops are harvested and soil re-cultivated, and actually prefer a richer more arable soil.

Many people love these colourful mixed packs but are very disappointed when they only last a year or two! You have to re-cultivate and re-sow these seeds or add longer lasting wildflowers and grasses for when the annuals are done!

Photo by Gregory Smith
The cornfield annuals flowering in the first year of the Albany Road meadow 

Natural meadows often contain parasitic plants. The only one available for purchase in large quantities in the UK is Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor). Below are pages about rattle by Steve Head and plant life and another about parasitic plants by Amanda Tuke.
https://www.wlgf.org/rhinanthus.html
https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/parasitical-plants-of-the-british-meadows
https://www.plantlife.org.uk/plants-and-fungi/yellow-rattle/

Photo of the Yellow rattle flowers taken in Hertfordshire.
Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor),
photo by AnemoneProjectors,
CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Yellow Rattle attaches its roots to those of the surrounding grasses to steal nutrients. The grass grows less thickly, and more flowers can thrive. 

We should do experiments on scale sowing this plant. Perhaps central London conditions aren’t right, and it is hard to establish the seeds. They need to be fresh, as they lose their viability quickly but also need a period of cold before germination.

But there is Yellow Rattle reported by the Friends, not that far away, at the lovely Mitchum Common, or huge fields I’ve seen somewhere in North Kent.

There is another type of meadow possible in fields cultivated agriculturally: the green manures, some of which are legumes. These are sown and then often cut and dug in when they are still green, before going to seed. These are often used to protect the soil from undesirable plants and erosion between crops, to regenerate the soil structure and nutrients and create colourful and floriferous temporary meadows for pollinators. Plants sown can include Lucerne (alfafa), crimson or other clovers, vetches, phacelia or grasses such as rye. Lucerne especially is a good choice for our site, since it is the food plant of the Holly Blue butterfly. Chicory is also used as a green manure. 

Photo of the butterfly by Gregory Smith
Holly Blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus) on the west banks 

https://www.soilassociation.org/farmers-growers/low-input-farming-advice/cover-crops-and-green-manures/

Permanent meadows, for pasture or wildlife, can have some annuals, but are mainly biennial or perennial wildflowers and between fifty and ninety per cent grasses. Flowers in permanent meadows generally prefer a lower nutrient soil so the grass is thinner and more flowers can grow. Yellow rattle can be also added at a suitable point. 

Many of the typical native wildflowers available from the various suppliers aren’t so suitable for our compacted sandy/silty clay soil, unless we keep re-cultivating and topping up the soil with fresh seed. Perhaps we should be using other plants that can better compete in a richer, heavier soil, or cut and rake the grass more systematically in ways that allow a suitable range of flowers to better thrive.

Of course, removing cuttings and nutrients is very valid for all our meadows and prairies in the park. On soil with a high clay content, we do want to cut and remove as much material regularly and in effective ways on such a scale, if we want thinner grass and potentially more flowers. But it’s important to do this at the right times to allow whatever flowers are present to successfully seed.

Making meadows

1. Moving meadows

We can dig out the soil and replace it with a far lower nutrient material. This is the best way to truly create a highly floriferous permanent meadow that hopes to establish a more diverse range of species than those found growing locally, creating a blank canvas and starting again – but this involves large cost, a lot of energy and resources and environmental damage, and even then – unless the soil is very different, or the sown plants are truly suitable to local conditions – a range of locally present wild plants will return. The floriferous and diverse west side meadow uses a low nutrient sand quarried quite locally to London. 

Photo of the flower meadow by Gregory Smith.
New west side meadow built by Ground Control as part of the west side renovations: Greater knapweed, ladies bedstraw, viper’s bugloss and sainfoin.
Photo of a prickly hawkweed bush by Gregory Smith
Prickly Hawkweed (Picris hieracioides) is common across the park but has self seeded; it really thrives in the sandy soil in cooler years 
Photo by Gregory Smith
Vipers bugloss (Echium vulgare) en masse on the west banks and new meadow in areas not too thick with grasses

Photo by Gregory Smith
A mass of ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) at the Rust Square end of the new meadow built by Ground Control several years ago.
Photo of mass of lesser knapweek by Gregory Smith
Hardheads or lesser knapweed (Centaurea nigra).
Below is Sainfoin (Onobryhis viciifolia).
Photo of a number of sainfoin by Gregory Smith

Low nutrient meadows can also be built with all kinds of recycled materials. A brief blog by John Little of the Grass Roof Company describes the potential of crushed building materials. Ironically there have been, and will continue to be, giant piles of crushed buildings all around the park, as development happens to the surrounding area! Perhaps the old estates could become new meadows in the park! 

2. Scraping meadows

Instead of importing a mountain of new sandy soil or other low nutrient planting medium, we can scrape away the topsoil and as much plant /seed material as possible before cultivating the subsoil below, but it tends to be heavier clay than at the surface; quite variable in quality and incredibly compacting in places. 

This removes the soil with the most nutrients and a lot of the seed bank in the soil. Success depends on how much of the remaining invasive plant material can be removed/killed and the characteristics of the subsoil below. But ultimately the soil is still very similar to that on the surface in attracting nutrients. 

Photo by Gregory Smith
Meadow glade done by the Friends and biodiversity team this year initially with cornfield annuals.

 It’s a beautiful space for a meadow but the challenge will be stopping the nearby bramble/creeping thistle from returning after it was pretty thoroughly prepared by a team with mattocks, after digging out bramble roots with Complete Ecology’s lovely old tractor.

3. Waiting meadows

But finally, there is a third option, to do as little work as possible and leave the soil as it is! We can just not cut the grass, see what plants emerge and then best maintain our new meadow, with little soil or micro-organism disturbance at all. Or we can cultivate the soil, grass and topsoil included, perhaps starting with an over sowing of yellow rattle and other wild flower seeds in Autumn; then experiment with suitable plants by seed or division, trying to control the balance of plants with different timings of cutting and raking. This is what we have been doing all over the park, and actually the results are interesting and sometimes contrary to accepted theory about what will work or not. 

Photo by Gregory Smith
Ladies Bedstraw (Galium verum)

The Ladies Bedstraw is spreading happily to flat areas left uncut near original location on the nearby west banks, near the outdoor gym.

Photo by Gregory Smith
Wild mignonette (Reseda lutea) on playground mounds uncut in Spring. 

Wild mignonette was used to make a yellow dye called weld. We sowed this on the west side, where it grew for a few seasons and then vanished, but a few seeds seem to have reached these little mounds, where it is happier to grow. Every year we cut the grass around this little plant whilst it flowers, hoping it will spread into a larger clump! 

A mass of prickly ox tongue (Helminthotheca echiodes) with chicory on a bank left uncut near the BMX track. Nature seems to produce the perfect colour contrasts! 
Autumn hawkbit (Schorzoneroides autumnalis) in uncut grass in semi-shade
Earlier in summer, Nipplewort (Lapsana communis) on a bank near Art in the Park
Rust Square
An uncommon white form of hedge cranesbill (Geranium pyrenaicum)

Rust Square. There were small areas of meadow turf laid in the redesign of Rust Square, but only a few patches established. This type of meadow turf often seems to be grown through some kind of plastic net which falls apart. Then it is a question of whether the plants growing through it can attach themselves to the ground, as the net they are growing through constantly gets ripped by cutting, and disintegrates. 

Large patches of dog violets (Viola riviniana) in grass left uncut in Rust Square

We tried to cut the whole wooded section into sections of longer grass. These areas are actually full of dog violets, red campion spread from other seeding elsewhere, white and red dead nettles, cow parsley, cranesbills and other attractive plants. Then the area dries out and becomes a huge thicket of less attractive hedge mustard (Sisymbrium officinale), and really needs cutting and collecting during Summer.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) on white clover (Trifolium repens) on short grass verge left uncut near the underpass.
Huge clumps of chicory ( Chicorium intybus) are spreading so fast across the west side anywhere the grass is left long
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in the uncut bulb area near the Wells Way underpass

Mowing and growing

Nitrogen fixing legumes
Spotted Medick

Legume lawns. Great mounds of Spotted Medick (Medicago arabica) appear in the poorer areas of uncut lawn, like a lush vegetated hilly landscape at insect scale.

The pea/bean family (Fabaceae) is a huge family that contains seven per cent of flowering plants. The peas/beans have evolved in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Rhizobia, which infect the plant roots, creating nodules containing the bacteria. The bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into a soluble form the plant can use.

Plants can also have similar relationships with beneficial networks of fungus called Mycorrhiza that also merge with plant root systems to find more moisture and nutrients.

So, counter intuitively in terms of our understanding of lowering nutrients, in places where the soil is compacted heavy clay and relatively bare of grass, the main thing that often appears is a great mat of legumes!

 We have clovers (Trifolium spp), lucerne (Medicago sativa) and vetches (Vicia spp) that do well in milder years. This year the white and red clover appeared in large clumps and flowered until the recent dry weather, but in drier years it is hardly visible at all. 

But the main legume is a lush, clover-like plant with tiny yellow flowers called Spotted Medick (Medicago arabica). This originates in the Mediterranean basin, and has a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria Ensifer medicae. We left banks of the great lawn uncut this year, and this plant was about fifty per cent of what emerged! We can remove the surface layer of soil and seed bank it contains to start again, but these are the plants that naturally want to colonise our compacted clay soil. 

Nutrient attracting soil
Kiran’s jar tests

Jar tests done this year by apprentice Kiran. This is soil from the low-nutrient sandy meadow compared with a typical park flowerbed, which is a mix of typical rubbly clay soil with some organic matter from yearly mulches. Sieving and cleaning the soil of organic matter, then popping in a jar with water, shaking vigorously and leaving for a while to settle, separates the soil particles into layers of separate mineral particle size to give a rough visual idea of proportions of sand/silt and clay. 

There are various soil texture tests you can also do by rolling small amounts of wet soil between your fingers to check the soil’s texture, whilst following a visual diagram that works out what soil texture you have. 

When considering nutrient levels in our meadows, note the characteristics of our actual soil, which is a mix of original or imported top soil/organic matter and human debris, but it lies above a deep fold of London clay with various ratios of sand/silt and gravel, 130 metres deep in places. In the park we likely have alluvium and head clay/silt – the former deposited from the river, the latter developing in the tidal flood plains, which themselves have changed over time as the Thames changed its course and London grew.

https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/London_Atlas:_Geology
https://www.lnhs.org.uk/index.php/articles-british/249-geology-of-london

Clay naturally attracts nutrients because of its negative electrical charge, whereas larger soil particles hold onto fewer nutrients, so our soil is naturally quite nutrient rich, especially when a layer of imported loam has been added and organic matter builds up in the topsoil over time, with cuttings and organic matter breaking down. But our soil varies in proportions of clay mixed with courser silt/sand/gravel particles and of course layers of rubble from the city’s past. Our urban soil has been walked and driven over and been moved around all over the park, compacting it further and damaging the soil structure and micro-organisms more times than it can remember. Of course it’s still not a highly modified flowerbed or allotment soil where we specifically mulch with vast amounts of organic matter to grow the widest range of ornamental plants or food, but in terms of grass thickness and species type it is still quite nutrient rich.

Climate in central London

This can be several degrees warmer than outside the city as the fumes of the city create their own greenhouse effect. We have to be aware that in long droughts and hot summers many UK wildflowers frazzle away. But hopefully, as long as enough complete their life cycles or survive the heat, wildflowers will return the following year or even rejuvenate and flower again in Autumn. Most typical native meadow flowers grow and flower more between Spring and early Summer. But as the temp drops again there can be another flush of flowers in late Summer, or right through the year in cooler years such as this one. 

But if these high, dry temps become the norm we will have to choose more drought and heat tolerant plants, or landscape our park better to create sunken, more moist planted areas. The Camberwell Swales demonstrate this very well, with a moisture gradient and nice mix of original Hitchmough plants and wildness, though they are perhaps too deep. We let them continue growing rather than neatly control all year. This makes them look a bit messy to some eyes, but we are just experimenting with letting attractive and less invasive wild plants fill the gaps left by the original planting, to see what works. This is also a less intensive and far more wildlife-friendly approach to ‘weeding’.

Current flora
Greater/Hairy Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) Camberwell Swales
Native and not. Camberwell Swales looking nicer than usual due to a summer with no drought. A mix of nipplewort and other wild, yellow daisies and day lilies. 
Buttercups in heart of the park. We have Ranunculus repens (creeping) and R. acris (meadow). I think this is the latter but can’t see the leaves very well in the picture. These thrive in cooler years but are hardly noticeable in hot dry springs and summers.
             White comfrey (Symphytum orientale), we also have other blue/lilac forms of S.officinale and S. x uplandicum in the swales and ditches. The blue plant is related but is not borage. It is green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens) which has invaded from Europe and is pretty invasive but bee friendly. Any London gardener will recognise it!
Greater celadine (Chelidonium majus) and small leaved cranesbill (Geranium pusillum)
Hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannibum) and purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) in the lake ‘reeds’ spreading onto the cleverly positioned old sections of island moved by the angling club. 
Pulicaria dysentrica (Yellow fleabane) next to lake.

Perforated St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) 
Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) after the bulbs at Addington Square

                                             

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) and oxe eye daisies (Leucathemenum vulgare) in 
         the new west side meadow 

The current meadow plant populations really vary across the park. From the centre to east of the park there are a large amounts of older, very established wild meadows and banks, generally with thick grass and very established seed banks and plants that can compete with the thick grass in the heavy rubble-filled compacted soil. So the wild plants tend to be the more invasive and larger species, many of which are very common locally, and have likely been here a long time: hemlock, tall patches of nettles and thistles, cow parsley in shadier areas, hogweed, mallow, dock, mugwort.

These are all perfectly desirable for wildlife, and are a great habitat, but are not so much enjoyed by humans. They are more like a two-metre high, stingy /spiky thicket than a low meadow full of flowers to be run through. But for ants or seed collecting birds, it is paradise. 

Lower, prettier flowers do poke through our thicker meadows in Spring and even Summer in milder years: legumes, cranesbill, yarrow, Ladies Bedstraw and many other species, and – later – chicory, wild carrot, vetches, teasel and ragwort, various other yellow daisies, and some smaller plants flowering again as the weather cools after Summer.

The biggest problems are with bramble and Russian vine (Fallopia baldschuanicum) spreading into the meadows from near the ‘antiques’ yard, and with greater and field bindweed, creeping thistle and cleavers (Galium aparine), all of which can cover meadows in huge and ever- spreading patches which are pretty impossible to weed out. They all have wildlife and habitat value, but these vigorous bullies crowd out everything else and make sustaining diverse plant populations pretty impossible. Unfortunately they really need treating one way or another before they grow out of control. Even the smaller bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) can create dull, flat areas twenty metres across in a few years, with all the other plants trapped underneath a great twining mat of foliage – the only relief being when it vanishes in cold weather, only to return over twice the area the following Spring.

I’m pretty sure that the main species of bramble in the park is Armenian/Himalayan bramble rather than some form of native or European species as previously described, though these may be present too. I really think spot treating with relatively small amount of stump killing chemicals, after cutting down and doing our best to dig out, is the most pragmatic way to control it. 

https://www.britishwildlife.com/article/article-volume-34-number-1-page-28-30/

Welcome to the bramble! Please dig this out with hand tools asap or just cut it down so it spreads even further under the soil and sends up fresh canes a month later. Then do the remaining 50 acres!

In some areas it is more likely that thinning the grass will just mean more tall invasive species and bramble filling the gaps rather than more delicate little flowers, unless we have machines that can keep cutting and collecting, scarifying and seeding enough to slowly change the ratio of larger and less desirable to smaller and more desirable plants over a long period of time. 

But there must be trillions of seeds and fragments of locally prevalent fauna already in the soil. Most of them are happy in a range of conditions and can still thrive with less nutrients. For example, the giant patches of creeping thistle or field bindweed in the now much lower-nutrient west side meadow are still perfectly content to spread at a worrying rate.

In many ways the lusher areas of current short-cut lawns are potentially much better meadows than the existing well-established ones that are supposed to be meadows! They still have a wide range of smaller, prettier wildflowers and a finer sward of grass, and more chance to control the invasive plants at an early stage.

The lawns on the west side of the park, and some of the canal path areas especially, seem more floriferous. The huge south banks are full of wild carrot and chicory, and all of the wilder meadow areas on the west side are cut and collected carefully.  

Chicory

Chicory on the south banks. If you want to see the flowers at their best, it has to be early morning, with the low sun shining through the petals. Soon the flowers are quickly pollinated by bees; then they close in the heat of the sun, and look pale and unimpressive. On greyer days the flowers open more gradually, but you don’t get the wall of colour. Then new flowers open the next day, from summer until autumn, when all of the flowers are spent. 

The new meadow sowing, and large amounts of new wildflower seed in various experiments, have also created an increasingly huge seed bank of wildflowers to spread around. What is really positive is how wild flowers move so quickly into new areas once enough are sown. If enough suitable seed is present plants will sustain themselves and spread! 

The vast amount of red campion (Silene dioica) and hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo) sown just on the north banks and in small patches at Rust Square seem to have spread into various suitable locations on the border between meadows and woodlands, even appearing along paths in the woods themselves. Ladies Bedstraw, sown on the west banks and in seed-sowing experiments, is popping up on margins of thicker grass in flat areas nearby.

Hedge Bedstraw

Hedge Bedstraw along the north banks. It has done well towards the Walworth Road end, and is a really good ground cover to stop bindweed and – to an extent – even its relative cleavers. Now it is appearing in great clouds along the woodland edges one hundred metres away, on the other side of the mound.

Red campion (Silene dioica), cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) and hedge bedstraw (Galium mollugo) on shrubby meadow edges. 

I’m interested in whether all these wildflowers are naturally spreading or whether wildlife lovers are sprinkling seed here and there. Please help nature on its way! 

Meadow mania

Another positive development but hard to control aspect is guerilla gardening in the park. I built the Albany Road experiment to maintain it quite extensively, it is a work in progress, but one I’ve not had the time to develop in the last few years and dream of better kit and budgets to do so more efficiently and to a higher standard. It is still a highly floriferous but in places tall and patchy meadow with invasive plants returning such as big patches of nettles and mallow. Beyond the flat areas, the banks themselves are huge and hard to control.

What is amazing is unknown persons have started to maintain some of these Albany Road areas, weeding, removing the vast ugly carpet of cleavers in spring to better define the flowers. For me this couldn’t be a better outcome, especially if there is a foraging aspect too.

Interestingly, cleavers is edible and actually in the coffee family; roast and grind the seeds for a caffeinated beverage not too dissimilar to instant coffee! Be careful foraging in the park too regularly though as there are potentially all kinds of pollution below ground. 

The Albany Road experiment. It’s still actually very floriferous, with a vast range of species, but difficult to stop the less desirable species from spreading. It looks a bit tatty but I feel a bit miffed when people suggest that it is a failure. I’m just unable to do much to it at the moment apart from cut and remove all the cuttings when the flowers all finish. 

It was really useful to see how this plant community developed over time, but obviously it was never going to remain a colour cornfield annual display without regular topping up of seed, which actually wouldn’t have cost a fortune with a small tractor and cultivator. The main plant above is white campion (Silene latifolia) though it looks similar to bladder campion (vulgaris). This dainty little plant seems happier with more thuggish neighbours than red campion that is still quite widely spread across the North banks and now into woodland or other suitable places in the west side. 

These secret meadow maintainers are now having all the same insurmountable problems I had for years battling the more invasive plants but many thanks for your efforts!

Turf wars

The data gained from all these experiments are the type of plants that thrive in our conditions and how they are affected by cutting. With traditional meadows you may cut at the end of Spring and then later in Summer, or just one cut towards the end of Summer. Cutting later in Summer or even Autumn is more sensitive for wildlife and means a wider range of seed has time to ripen and return to the soil.

Most short lawns apart from the most barren, exposed to heat and wind, compacted, over-used for sport/events areas such as the great lawn or increasingly west side main lawns, become more like alpine meadows in Spring!

 One plant I’m surprised to see is musk storksbill (Erodium moschatum). It is short lived and seems to die after flowering, but perhaps can stay growing as long as it is constantly pruned back. It is supposed to be quite rare in the UK but appears all over the park.

Musk storksbill (Erodium moschatum)

These similar ‘lawn weeds’ still appear profusely in the thicker meadows too, but are soon engulfed by the grass and taller plants. But there are hedge (purple and white), small flowered, dissected and Herb Robert cranesbills, lesser and unrelated greater celadine, veronicas, the various legumes, storksbill, daisies, buttercups and white and red dead nettles. In more woodland areas there are green alkanet, cow parsley and other umbels, comfrey including the white variety. We also have plenty of bulb areas in Spring but it would be nice to have more.

Cutting once a month to maintain this array of low growing lawn flowers with a longer period left in Spring isn’t actually that awful. It keeps the grass low and stops too much biomass building up. These low growing plants can tolerate cutting and perhaps benefit from conditions that allow them to better compete with taller more vigorous species so they spread much more freely than otherwise. 

In areas of short lawn we can easily identify and cut around notable colonies of flowers, not just in spring but throughout the year. 

Then Achillea, chicory, wild carrot, charlock, mallow, perforated St Johns Wort, less and greater salad burnet and a bewildering array of yellow daisies of various species, shapes and sizes, and a range of white umbellifers flower through summer; biennials or perennials that flower profusely and seed that are somehow shaped to find their way through the thick sward of grass to the soil and remain viable to re-sprout, with roots that can penetrate to where there is moisture. In some areas if we cut in Summer, we will cut down all the chicory and wild carrot and potential seeds. Once we let these plants grow thick and tall it’s hard to cut them anyway. 

It would be nice to have more diversity on the chicory banks … all kinds of interesting non-natives could be also tried … for example, cardoons seem perfectly happy or many other taller more vigorous herbaceous plants. This is why we cut the (chicory filled) south banks of the mounds at the end of Winter. Leaving it almost to Spring makes last year’s stems much easier to cut down and removes the maximum amount of biomass from the previous year, after the seed has had plenty of time to fall. 

But if the bank of chicory looks pretty especially early morning on a sunny day and are feeding thousands of bees, then let’s worry more about other areas more threatened by invasive plants.

Perhaps looking at the diverse meadows of central Europe would be a good place to start. If we can’t create enough diversity from the limited range of native plants still suitable for our conditions then we can still choose ones from further away that benefit wildlife and look attractive to us. 

The west bank pictured previously after cutting and raking, in early summer this year. 

An evolved system of maintenance

James Hitchmough kindly handed me a brief management plan once. It begins with a thoughtful statement.

Many planting schemes in public landscapes fail, or at least never achieve expectations because maintenance thought and practice is unable to respond to the needs of the developing vegetation. Very often this is because maintenance is often seen as a process of making inputs as specified rather than achieving the desired outcome. To break out of this situation it is essential that maintenance staff are able to make connections between what they do and how the vegetation responds accordingly. Maintenance needs to be a ‘conversation’ between what is being maintained and the maintainers, not a set of instructions

I really treasure my copy of James’s management plan but it amuses me that the above words gently pass on the responsibility for potential success to the maintainers for such a large and complex planting! But I’ve tried to follow this approach, but not just with Hitchmough’s prairie plants but all of the plants, wildlife and people in the park. 

My ability to do this beyond my own personal capacity is simply down to the people power and resources I have at my disposal. 

But there are so many ways that we can evolve a sustainable and more wildlife friendly practice that creates a more diverse landscape of plants, not just for ourselves but all the other life we share this planet with.

Hellroot/Broomrape Orobanche minor

This interesting flower is a holoparasitic plant that doesn’t photosynthesise. Instead it gains nutrients with its roots connecting to other host plants, including grasses, legumes and daisies. We found a huge clump at Addington Square in amongst the rough grass and green alkanet.

Mowing the paths along Albany Road. The north bank to the left urgently needs bramble removed.

The traditional park and public green space approach to managing grassland and the intermingled shrubs and trees is incredibly out of date and is slowly being evolved in many green spaces to become more sustainable and wildlife sensitive but it needs to be clearly understood and written down at Burgess.

Currently teams of knackered staff try to keep all the short grass cut at the same frequency to create a monoculture of lawn, a non-flowering mat of nothing remotely useful beyond protecting and slowly building the actual soil itself. But, plants actually allowed to grow in a natural way will do this far more effectively than simply uncollected short lawn trimmings, which don’t add much goodness anyway. 

But do we want to have these neat areas of lawn for other purposes, socialising, sport, resting and recreation without the dangers of hidden litter? 

But even these short areas of grass can be cut more sensitively in Spring in any areas with lots of flowers.Then notable patches of flowers anywhere during the rest of the year simply can be neatly mown around, this can be done attractively if flowering patches are nicely shaped in a way that suits the layout of the surrounding area. 

Meadow strip

A simple strip of longer grass along the west side avenue. The longer grass keeps the soil below cooler so there is also more moisture for the tree and other organic life. Even in this formal area the meadow strip can be parallel to the path and neatly defined by shorter grass either side. This strip I would like wider, the mower is still driving too close, all these patches should be as wide as the canopies above. Here we just have mainly wall barley though this could be controlled as an annual by an additional cut for a few years to remove the seed heads but actually works well in terms of potential to add more wildflowers, in fact chicory and lucerne (alfafa) could be growing along here consistently in a few years, especially if we use ‘green hay’ from the chicory banks nearby.

This is immediately less work, less fuel, more time to do other things.

Then there are new and mature trees. With not enough staff or equipment the most appalling and most used approach is to drive in doughnuts around these trees as closely as possible with the greatest skill apparently, leaving as little grass as possible for the poor people strimming to cut after. If the giant ride-on doesn’t actually hit the tree, fracturing the trunk at the most vital place or pull branches off with the anti-roll bar, then it still continuously compacts the surrounding soil, greatly affecting the health of the tree’s root system.  

From a logistical viewpoint it also means much more work, with the machine having to spend so much more time spinning around all the obstacles. 

From a sustainability and cost point of view this means machines get damaged and wear out quicker as well as more fuel. Even more importantly the actual drivers get worn out more quickly too, these big heavy machines with little in the way of sophisticated suspension are not so good for the human skeleton or diesel fumes from the exhaust and dust kicked up by the cutting deck good for the lungs.

Then once the ride on has passed along come the strimmers, these high revving machines that are supposed to be throttled gently to cut around tree bases. But they don’t cut well at low revs and again the only priority is aesthetic neatness and with thousands of trees, most develop a line of strimmer damage all around the base, just where the tree trunk meets the ground containing all kinds of micro organisms, both beneficial but also potentially deadly to the tree. 

This cycle happens all year, the trees are damaged more, the soil and life it contains equally so, and no other useful habitat or food for wildlife can be found in the surrounding lawn. 

In Summer the grass dies back anyway as the trees suck away all the nearby moisture! Just once a year then conveniently as it gets busy and there is more problems with less pleasant litter, the tatty remains of the grass can be neatened around the trees without heavy machinery. 

Then to continue throughout the whole year we reach Autumn and the grass thickens again and deciduous trees lose their leaves. So now lets cut all the grass everywhere again, pick up all the leaves and take them elsewhere to mix with invasive plant fragments whilst turning into compost (this is another blog on green ‘waste’). So we remove the leaves from under the trees which would replenish their nutrients and so the grass still grows more thickly and we can still neatly cut it. If the grass is longer again once the leaves fall they will stick in the grass that is shaped like the above canopy. Other leaves can be blown back into this longer grass. The grass and leaves will then both decompose and release their nutrients back into the soil and the grass would not need to be cut around the trees the following Spring. 

If we leave surrounding grassland long and do cut it we can also use the hay as additional organic matter around trees. 

We have been doing this in certain areas, for example a dozen damsons and rare trees planted along the Albany Road project by us or the council are mulched with meadow cuttings and shredded leaf compost, or the black oaks beside the smaller tennis court with their own leaves and cuttings from the nearest chicory bank. 

Black Oaks
Longer grass, wall barley and other species with increasing amounts of chicory and achillea.

The black oaks (Quercus nigra) are widely mulched as far as their canopies with green hay from elsewhere and from the surrounding longer grass. They can also be mulched with fallen leaves. Here the tree pits have been left not weeded most of the year but the mulch is still pretty effective pre leaf-fall and the trees look healthy and are undamaged. Any unwanted vegetation around the tree is also much easier to remove due to the mat of organic matter on the surface and looser and softer soil below which any weeds are mainly growing on top of. 

All of this would save a massive amount of work, time, energy, equipment and destruction of our surrounding environment. 

All these resources could then be used to do better things, buy the range of equipment we actually need, have more budget for other resources and have more people power to actually look after the plants and wildlife and manage the park organism more rationally.

Meadow cutting kit …
… at the end of a long contract

This is why controlling the most invasive plants effectively and efficiently is the only pragmatic approach. We have armies of volunteers who can come in and help but much of the time they are hacking huge clumps of bramble in a pointless manner which means it returns over a wider area six months later. 

These people could be helping create a much higher standard of planting in the rest of the park. This I need them to do increasingly, as my team and myself get older and we are generally less physically capable ourselves, with the decline in older staff obviously not possibly matchable with incoming younger staff. 

All kinds of organisations and companies come, from ones appreciated as benevolent and caring to more corporate entities that many people are critical about. I totally understand this but it is more important to make use of this as a resource to get things done and also more positively facilitate these large private companies in contributing more to the world. The process just needs to be made way more practically effective and not just for PR and tax incentives for a corporate entity operating in a more ‘charitable’ context. The reality is though the Burgess friends are 2.6k strong, people are busy and can only help so much in a practical sense. 

We also have an ongoing program of regular volunteers but this is more sporadic and more working with small groups or just individuals who can benefit from being here but also are capable of helping us look after the park without slowing things down, but I only have so much time to communicate with people and get everything done at the same time. 

But even without better resources we can do things so much more intelligently and in sync with the environment that we need to cherish. 

I need your support to make it happen as we evolve management plans and ultimately a contract of maintenance for the park, however it is organised in the future.

You can all do your little bit, simply bring positive energy and share it about.

Support and help each other and communicate respectfully and patiently. Don’t behave in ways that upset other people or all the other plants and wildlife here. Keep your dogs under control, pick up a bit of litter, scatter some seeds. Pick up some fallen branches and return them to a wild area. Learn about and enjoy being around plants and nature! Forage for small amounts of food. Report any problems, ideas or things you are doing already to make our park a better place for all!  

Volunteers working on meadow/woodland margins this year.

We have great responsibility because we are all head gardeners of the planet. 

We can be also all be head arborists, ecologists, conservationists, naturalists,  andscapers, botanists, biologists, zoologists, permaculturists and regenerative agriculturalists too! We can combine the best of all these ideas to form the best practice in a humble manner.

There are some incredible new approaches to managing green space and restoring the health of the soil, fauna and flora of green space.

Below some links to permaculture and food forest networks

The Balkan Ecology Project. Using permaculture principles to create attractive wildlife friendly and food growing spaces in a more sustainable closed system using sound design principles involving topography to improve moisture availability and a better understanding of how plants can be carefully positioned to interact better as a productive community as well as restoring the health of the soil biome. 

https://nordicpermaculture.org/en/forest-gardening-and-food-forestry
https://balkanecologyproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/happy-new-year-from-polyculture-project.html

To even begin to have such ambitions we have to be quite fierce and controlling to evolve the best population of plants for our own wellbeing and the diversity of the rest of life around us. This is because we influence the planetary flora and fauna so much that it is evolving to survive our abuse by becoming more robust but potentially less diverse as well. But beyond the armies of thorns, stingy and poisoned plants, diversity remains. Once we are firm with the most invasive plants, we can more successfully maintain the rest and also design the park to become more productive and sustainable for all of the organisms that visit or live in it.  

But the rest of the time there are so many ways that we can become more gentle and efficient in the way we manage the organic environment around us. Then hopefully together we can develop a more sustainable practice that makes the park a more beautiful place for us all!

Greg Smith, Head Gardener, Burgess Park. 23/11/24

Vipers bugloss (Echium vulgare) and ladies bedstraw (Galium vernum) 
Perfectly contrasting shades of blue and yellow to commemorate the people of Ukraine. A hope for peace, harmony and good health for Europe and Russia, the Middle and Far ‘East’ and for all humans and life on this planet.

Greg Smith also wrote a comment on this blog on the Friends of Burgess Park heritage website. He listed the flowers which were being introduced as part of the redesign of Burgess Park when the various mounds were created. See https://bridgetonowhere.friendsofburgesspark.org.uk/piles-of-rubble-turned-into-a-wildflower-walk-8th-august/

FOBP AGM

FOBP AGM Tues 5 November 7-8.30pm at 1st Place nursery, Chumleigh Gardens, refreshments from 6.30pm. Or online Zoom. Liam Nash the borough ecologist will be speaking. Faraday SNT invited (TBC). See Liam’s presentation.

At this meeting FOBP will update about what we have done this year. We also appoint a new committee. Anyone who uses Burgess Park can be on the committee. We meet monthly. We also organise our activity through sub-groups; woodlands/nature, planning, heritage and park buildings. FOBP are volunteers, we are not funded and fundraise for projects.

Woodland signage showing QR code

Woodlands

Burgess Park woodlands activities winter/spring 2024

Butterfly habitat management project Albany Road woodlands

Join our woodlands maintenance session Sat 27 Jan 11.00 to 3.30 we will be clearing brambles and coppicing to enhance the woodland glade in the Albany Road woodlands. Please book here.

This volunteer woodlands maintenance is the first phase of the works to open-up the woodland glades by coppicing and bramble removal. Southwark Council will organise this volunteer work session.

The second phase will be run by Big City Butterfly Project, who will employ a contractor to; de-turf, remove roots and sow the area with a meadow mix within the glade which we will create.

This is part of the Friends of Burgess Park healthy woodlands project. We have also been awarded funding from the Southwark Council Cleaner Greener Safer fund for a new pathway. Find out more about Burgess Park woodlands.

Making meadows part 2 

Albany Road seed sowing experiment

As described in my previous blog, we have been experimenting with grass cutting in various locations around Burgess Park, to see which wild plants would emerge over time and how much wildlife would be attracted. We will focus on these areas in the next blog, and discuss the best approaches to maintaining meadow areas and what machinery to use. But, before we did any of this, we experimented with a much larger area of short grass between the three west side mounds and Albany Road. The original plan was just to try and reseed the north banks of the nearby mounds themselves with a more attractive range of plants than the ‘weeds’ that had quickly outgrown the original James Hitchmough prairie planting on these newly built slopes. Previous head gardener Oliver Miller had already experimented with sowing certain seeds, and had the greatest success with a mass sowing of Honesty (Lunaria annua), as well as trying out various other plants.

The previous sowing of Lunaria annua (honesty) with the beautiful lilac flowers contrasting nicely with James Hitchmough’s acid lime marsh spurge (Euphorbia palustris) and light blue quamash (Camassia ssp). The honesty has faded over time with more vigorous plants talking over but it is still present in smaller quantities. 

I knew that with the huge seed bank of fast-spreading wild plants already taking over, and with problems with the steepness, dryness and poor soil structure of the bank itself, that any reseeding would have limited success. James Hitchmough kindly visited a few times, and came up with plan to remove all the weeds between the too widely spaced original plants, before a mass sowing of a special cultivar of Deschampsia cespitosa (tufted hair grass) to fill in the gaps with an attractive ornamental grass with sufficient biomass to outcompete all the weeds. This was a clever idea and would have made the banks much more attractive and consistent looking. But I think when James visited, whilst the banks still looked very much in control, probably because we’d just strimmed between all the remaining plants, there was a huge seed bank of weeds already in the soil. The steep banks, with their increasingly thin covering of sugar beet top soil above a harder pan of soil and rubble from the old park, would be a hard location to establish a successfully thick sowing of grass without some kind irrigation and I think, a lot of spraying would have had to be done, along with good luck with the weather. It turns out that we had some very hot and dry periods over the next several years.

We used James’s Deschampsia, but also selected the seed of a much wider variety of native plants as well. I also decided to spread the seed over a much wider area, to strip back, weed and over sow the banks themselves, but also to try and turn the whole space between the slopes and Albany Road into a more natural space, with much more habitat for wildlife.

I wanted to re-contextualise what was seen as an over ambitious prairie slope that had totally failed, and redefine it as a success for wildlife and the park, with the bank becoming a mix of James’s interesting original plants, plus wildflowers and grasses. James, I think, just came up with an excellent plant list for these slopes. The problem was the LDA design was over-ambitious; the banks were too steep and huge to be successfully maintained as designed. A wilder, less intensive approach was more realistic — a new area for habitat and a softer, more attractive space. Rather than an angular triangle of ‘failed’ planting with just short grass at its base, a continuation of wildness from bank to road with grass paths to walk though would make the increasing wildness of the bank itself much more appropriate and suit the space better. I also guess that perhaps there was once a meadow somewhere along this fence line at some point before the park was rebuilt … there are pretty metal butterfly posts in places, a certain distance from the fence, that perhaps defined some wilder area, so it was nice to return the dull lawn to a meadow if that was the case. 

Many thanks for the council letting me do this; they could have easily insisted that this reseeding was against our obligations to cut the grass around the mounds short, but instead let me proceed with the experiments as I wished. The council showed patience and understanding to allow this area and the nearby banks to become a much more useful habitat as well as being more sustainable to maintain.

The area in winter before we started work. Some lime trees had already been planted by Southwark and we planted a dozen damson trees ourselves. Many more interesting trees had since been planted by the development team, including rare oaks on dwarfing rootstocks, and even Canary Island pines. A few years later we also did two plantings of native whips to try to create a wall of native shrubs along the fenceline. These included wild and cultivated privet, yew, hazel, dogwoods, holly, spindle bushes, blackthorn, wild roses, hawthorn, and cultivars and wild Scotch broom.
A newly prepared area for sowing along Albany Road. I did initially spray off the grass in the flat areas above. I would have rather stripped the turf layer (also removing the most nutrient rich soil at the surface) or simply had a cultivator powerful enough to break through the turf and cultivate the soil. But I did most of the work myself, and I simply didn’t have the machinery or people-power to remove 1000s of m2 of turf and had nowhere to put the giant mound of turf that would’ve been created. I felt in this case, a single spray was justified, to create a much more sustainable and wild area longer term. I also had to cultivate this huge space with a single hand-pushed cultivator to sow the seed and could only do this with bare soil. The concept was to remove the existing turf and then sow a wide range of wild seed, both wildflowers and a wider mixture of native grasses suitable for clay, to see what established, but also to see what pre- existing seed in the soil under the turf would germinate, and what mix of plants would eventually establish, as time progressed, with the soil below unchanged. The banks themselves we heavily weeded and cultivated as best as we could. Here we planned to sow James Hitchmough’s grass and a selection from the other seed that might establish on the increasingly poor and often dry soil of the steep slopes. 

We used a wide range of seeds, starting the flat areas with cornfield annuals for colour in the first few years.

I was interested in how long the cornfield annuals would persist without re-cultivation each year. The answer is about 2-3 years though we still get odd plants germinating where the grass is less thick. The cornfield annuals used were field poppy (Papaver rhoeas), field marigold (Glebionis segetum), cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) and corncockle (Agrostemma githago). I expected these to be the first flowers we saw but nature had other ideas!

After all the hard work, but nature knows best! A great mass of false chamomile (Tripleurospermum inodorum) appears first. The seed of this small annual plant must’ve lain dormant for many years and is in flower already just as the cornfield annuals began to appear. To maintain the meadow as a mix of false chamomile and corn flowers would’ve been lovely but would have involved re-cultivating the soil as soon as these plants went to seed and topping up the cornfield flower seed every few years.
The field poppies appear and the meadow  looks very English! I was hoping if we planted enough poppies some would persist over time, but again they want re-cultivated soil and a decent period of cold in winter to break seed dormancy. We had a few very mild winters after this point and no poppies returned. Hitchmough’s oriental poppies (Papaver orientalis) on the nearby banks on the other hand still appear but are rather engulfed by more vigorous native plants. Here some  enthusiastic students studying at Walworth Garden through Bankside Open Spaces Trust are removing seedlings of certain more invasive plants that we initially (and naively!) thought could be controlled by weeding out.
Cornfield annuals are one of the main plants we have lost from our countryside meadows and rely on a cycle of yearly plowing to grow alongside crops such as wheat. They are mainly kept in existence these days by various excellent wildflower seed-selling companies. Unfortunately, to keep them growing in our meadows, we would need to re-cultivate the soil every few years and top up the seed. But for several hundred quid spent every few years, we could have a few of these large areas of very colourful and densely spaced flowers, that look more like the ‘ideal’ meadow people desire. In this case, we wanted some initial colour (and I hoped the council would be impressed and allow us to do more cornfield meadows in the future!) and for the cornflowers to give some initial shelter to the perennial wildflowers and grasses that we had also sown. In the foreground, one of Hitchmough’s west-facing banks, designed to look a bit like the meadows of central Europe, with Carthusian dianthus in flower (Dianthus carthusianorum).
Poppies on mass looking wonderful in the spring sun. Unfortunately, they totally vanished by the following year, though the cornfield marigolds and cornflowers around the margins persisted for a few more years. We also planted the beautiful sky blue flowered borage, which is starting to emerge in the right of the photo.

As for the rest of the seed, we chose native wildflower and grass seed hopefully suitable for the local conditions, depending on what was affordable and available. Many species I would have liked to have used were either unavailable or unaffordable in sufficient quantities. I would have liked to have used different suppliers to have a broader range of seed, including from the European suppliers Jelitto (https://www.jelitto.com/) but budget constraints meant we went with the excellent Naturescape (https://www.naturescape.co.uk/).

Perhaps a better choice would have been Emorsgate seeds (https://wildseed.co.uk/), simply as they are located closer to London, meaning their seed would be more adapted to local conditions. The wonderful new, low nutrient meadow on the west side used Emorsgate and has a fabulous variety of plants. I unfortunately had no budget to replace all the soil with a low nutrient alternative.

The seed we used included:

Achillea millefolium (yarrow) 
Agrimmonia eupatorium (agrimony) 
Borago officinalis (borage) 
Centaurea nigra (knapweed) 
Centaurea scabiosa (greater knapweed) 
Daucus carrota (wild carrot) 
Dipascus fullonum (teasel) 
Gallium album (hedge bedstraw) 
Gallium verum (ladies bedstraw) 
Hypericum perforatum (perforate St John’s wort)
Leucanthemum vulgare (ox-eye daisy) 
Pastinaca sativa (wild parsnip) 
Plantago lanceolata (ribwort plantain) 
Silene dioica (red campion) 
Silene vulgaris (bladder campion) 
Reseda lutea (wild mignonette) 
Trifolium repens (white clover) 
Verbascum nigrum (dark mullein) 
Vicia sativa (common vetch)

Clay soil wild grasses mix:

Agrostis capillaris (common bent)
Alopecurus pratensis (meadow foxtail) 
Anthoxanthum odoratum (sweet vernal grass)
Briza media (quaking grass)
Cynosurus cristatus (crested dogstail)
Festuca rubra ssp. commutata (Chewing’s fescue)
Festuca rubra ssp litoralis (Slender red fescue)
Hordeum secalinum (meadow barley)
Poa pratensis (smooth stalked meadow grass)
Trisetum flavescens (yellow oat grass)
Festuca ovina (sheep’s fescue) 

James Hitchmough’s generously donated Deschampia for the north banks of the mounds

General clay meadow mix 80/20 mix (80% grasses to 20% flowers)
This had a mix of the grasses to the left and the wildlflowers above plus:

Geranium pratense (meadow cranesbill)
Knautia arvensis (field scabious)
Leontodon hispidus (rough hawkbit)
Lathyrus pratensis (meadow vetchling)
Lychnis flos-cuculi (ragged robin)
Primula veris (cowslip)
Prunella vulgaris (self heal)
Rhinanthus minor (yellow rattle)
Rumex acetosa (common sorrel)
Stachys officinalis (betony)
Tragopogon pratensis (goats beard)
Trifolium pratense (red clover)
(very little of this last list actually germinated)

The seed suppliers have developed great knowledge in terms of the ratios of flowers to grasses so their mixes tend to come in 80/20  or 90/10 grass to flower ratios. But we wanted to just throw down as much flower seed as possible, in the hope that more would persist long term. From the results of our sowing, perhaps a simple 80/20 clay wildflower mix would have been more efficient and much cheaper but we hardly spend a fortune. I did, however, find that few of the flowering species in the clay wildflower species mix actually germinated and the individual species seed germinated better. I wish I’d also included large quantities of Lucerne (alfalfa) in the sowing which would have been great for our Holly Blue butterflies, since it is available as a green manure and is very cheap to buy in large quantities but didn’t think to do so at the time. I should have consulted the local wildlife experts before selecting the seed to have identified more species specifically useful to wildlife found in the park. 

Also, compare our well-intentioned but inefficient sowing with Hitchmough’s precise work which can still be seen at St George’s prairie and various other slopes and dips around the park. James compiled a vast database of native and non-native species during his work at the University of Sheffield. He would build a vast array of small seed sowing beds, try different mixes and record the exact proportions of different species emerging. From this he would estimate the ideal ratios of a vast range of seed needed in a specific mix from wild herbaceous plants of the world. 

In comparison with the precise mixes from the seed suppliers, or James’s very scientific approach, we just bought a load of hopefully suitable seed, threw it down and hoped for the best! This meant that for a further two years we had an impressive amount of flowers. The cornfield annuals faded but with the grass still thin much of the other seed emerged. Certain species such as borage, red and bladder campion, hedge and ladies bedstraw, teasels, wild carrot, St John’s wort, ribwort plantain, knapweed, yarrow, salad burnet, the clay grass mix, lesser amounts of vetch and wild mignonette appeared. The rest of the seed didn’t appear at all. We likely didn’t sow at the correct time for all the species, or conditions weren’t suitable for germination, or perhaps some of the seed in the clay wildflower mix wasn’t so fresh or viable. Unfortunately, the Deschampsia also didn’t emerge on the banks. I think there wasn’t enough moisture for it to establish on the dry banks, and the seed was at least a few years old by the time we used it. There was also too much competition from the massive seed bank of wild plants already present and likely from all the other seed I also added.

The second year, but now the beautiful annual borage, and red campion and many other wild plants have replaced the cornfield annuals. In the background a much larger area of red campion on the re-seeded north banks has appeared. This short-lived perennial sustained itself well until we had a few incredibly hot summers which killed it all off. It then struggled to re-establish from whatever seed had fallen as the previous bare and cultivated soil was now a thick sward of grasses and wildflowers better suited to local conditions.
Borage 
Bladder campion

Forward a few more years and the balance of plants has changed again. Now the campion, borage and some of the other sown wildflowers have slowly reduced to the odd plant here and there, rather than a great but rather artificial, wall of colour. The soil and climactic conditions clearly aren’t suitable for large quantities of these plants to persist over time. It was a lovely and colourful experiment but longer term, nature will have its way. Clay soil once firm is not very friable so many seeds can’t get into the soil to germinate, or successfully germinate if they do, and most importantly, the clay soil holds onto nutrients so the grasses thicken up over time giving less space for the flowers, as well as forming a barrier to the seed reaching the soil in the first place. Despite us cutting and raking up much of the hay, the range of plants is slowly reverting back to plants that can handle the compacted but rich and quite heavy soil, that can compete with the thick grass and also that can complete their life cycles despite the incredibly hot and dry summers we increasingly have in London.

The grasses are increasingly thick and varied. I still need to try to identify all the species of grass present, what came up from what was sown, and what has appeared from seed already in the soil or blown in by the wind. My eyesight is increasingly poor and the grasses all look very similar without precise or patient enough identification skills!

Summer 2023. Despite cutting low and collecting the cuttings pretty thoroughly each year the balance of plants has changed again. There is much thicker grass but still a large amount of flowers. There are more trees and those planted have hugely increased in size. These will increasingly suck away some of the moisture for the meadow itself, but will have other benefits such as capturing large amounts of carbon dioxide and concealing the road and some of the fast-growing buildings beyond. There is some of the best suited seed of what was sown still appearing, but also copious seed in the soil germinating more suited to the local conditions. Notable plants include chicory (Chicorium intybus), charlock (Synapsis arvensis) and wild carrot (Daucus carrota). The wild carrot was sown and the chicory has quickly spread from the south banks of the mounds. The charlock (a member of the mustard family) is common in London, but is more of an initial coloniser and prefers thin grass or disturbed ground and is slowly pushed out as the grass thickens.
A thick tangle of wild carrot, chicory, and charlock, summer 2023. These are some of the wild flowers suitable for our site. We can start to look at these plants and think about why they are suitable. The chicory and wild carrot has a taproot that can grow under the thick grass to find moisture and nutrients. The small bullet like seeds of chicory seem to be able to find their way through the grass to the soil, which it needs to do to persist as it is biennial. Wild carrot also lasts for two years, but again somehow its copious tiny, bristly seeds also find their way back to the soil. 

We currently have a large amount of flowers and the meadow isn’t too high to problematically block sight lines and, for example, attract too much anti-social behaviour. The soil in this area doesn’t yet have such a high percentage of seed from taller more invasive plants that our more established wild areas in the east of the park have. The various banks of the nearby mounds are also full of wildflowers that can now possibly spread to this new area of meadow. The main one so far is chicory. I was hopeful that some of Hitchmough’s plants from nearby banks would also spread into this area, so, for example, we collected vast quantities of aster seed a few years ago and spread it through the whole area to try to extend the meadow’s flowering season, but none has emerged. Brockwell Bake and ancient wheat expert Andy Forbes also tried to establish a few old varieties of wheat, including one with an attractive, purplish seed head. These patches did great in the first year, but didn’t resow themselves the following year. 

But our work isn’t done, nature has further plans for our meadow, and we have reached the most challenging stage of maintenance. Ideally we would like to keep the meadow as it is at this stage, but there are many more vigorous and potentially problematic plants that want to establish and outcompete the plants currently growing. 

One particularly significant plant is mallow (Malva sylvestris). This year this species has begun to dominate in places. It has pretty purple flowers, but not a particularly attractive structure once it is fully grown, and it both spreads by roots very quickly to form dense clumps as well as dropping copious seed. This would be difficult to eradicate even by spraying; this plant is here to stay. The only way I can think to control it is to cut down and remove all the seed laden stems once it has finished flowering to limit its further spread. But it is a very useful plant for wildlife (and for people foraging for edible leaves in the park).

Mallow (Malva sylvestris) growing through Hitchmough’s azure asters on a west bank of the mounds, close to our new meadow. The meadow itself has increasingly huge amounts of this pretty-flowered but rather ugly-shaped species. It was there all along in remaining root fragments and seed in the soil and is now quickly dominating. 

But there are a great array of taller and even more problematic plants that want to establish in our meadow and re-seeded banks. These include: 

Gallium aparine (cleavers) forms a great mat of foliage over other plants which is hard to remove and looks a mess, though it creates habitat and keeps the soil below moist. We have given up trying to remove this as it comes up en masse in spring, but luckily then withers and completely fades away by early summer. 

Calystegia sepium (Hedge bindweed) Most gardeners will be well aware of the joys of trying to control bindweed. It does seem to prefer richer soil and flowerbeds and hasn’t spread so fast on the three north banks as I worried it would, though it is a problem in places, as is Convolvulus arvensis (hedge bindweed). On another north bank next to the car park, we worked incredibly hard to remulch the failing slope and replant densely but after a few years where it looked really good, a great carpet of bindweed spread quickly through the thick mulch and totally ruined our work. We are now trying to work out how to get rid of it without killing everything else.

Urtica dioica (stinging nettle). This is a great wildlife plant and we have allowed large clumps to establish on the slopes for certain butterflies. But now it is also appearing in the flat areas of meadow, making it less attractive, more stingy for humans and potentially outcompeting the plants we have already described. Hopefully, it will be kept in check by the thick grass and many other plants competing for nutrients but it is hard to eradicate. 

Cirsium arvense (creeping thistle) Like stinging nettle, this spreads by a great network of roots and is very difficult to kill without herbicide. The roots run deep with this plant. It has formed large, tall clumps in various places along the various slopes and has appeared at the far end of the meadow. It has also established in great clumps in places on the new, low nutrient meadow, due to the roots running deeper than the soil replaced. Again it is used by our wildlife including butterflies, but it’s not very pleasant to try and walk through a great clump of it or to have whole meadows turn to thickets of thistles. 

Arctium lappa (greater burdock) Another wonderful wild plant for wildlife and medicinally for us, with an impressive structure, pretty little thistle like flowers and giant leaves with great potential to use as a mulch. But it has the most irritatingly spiky and clingy seed which it produces in massive quantities, a massive root system that is impossible to remove, and can grow two metres high. It emerged in a few places on the second north bank, and quickly became a 50m2 thicket, shading out all the plants below. All we can really do without chemicals is cut it down once it is seeding and remove all the seed and cuttings, ideally using the cuttings as a mulching material elsewhere. 

Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort), similar to burdock, another useful medicinal plant with an impressive structure, but also very tall and very quickly spreading into huge clumps. 

Rumex obtusifolius (broad leaved dock). Another wonderful plant for wildlife but again, grows very tall and can produce 7,000 seeds on one plant. I like the rusty-coloured stems in autumn, but it is another plant that can grow to head height and quickly outcompete other plants. Again, I think the only solution is to remove enough of the stems before all the seed drops each year. 

Conium maculatum (hemlock). Another giant, again useful for pollinators with its copious and attractive white umbel flowers, But a very poisonous plant to us, that will grow into huge tall thickets if not kept in check. Again, all we can do is cut down all the seed laden stems before the seed drops so it doesn’t spread across our new meadow. 

Rubus fruticosus agg (wild blackberry / bramble). Bramble is the most difficult plant to deal with in the park though, of course, provides copious fruit for us and wildlife as well as habitat. But one plant can send out multiple giant stems that can each grow several metres in a season. The stem quickly loops back down to the soil. It then scrambles along, often hidden under the herbaceous layer. 

Adventitious roots quickly appear where the nodes on the endless stems are touching the ground. So one plant can easily become 50 plants in a year. The roots themselves also quickly become huge, deep and difficult to remove and also quickly spread through the soil. We are battling to control this plant in all of our meadows and wild areas in the park. 

Bramble is appearing all over the various slopes next to our new meadow. We hack out the roots and remove all the stems as best we can, but longer term, some careful spot spraying may be needed to control it sufficiently if we don’t want the whole park to become a giant thicket of thorns!

Current Level 3 Apprentice Kiran working hard to control great thickets of emerging bramble on the third north bank. This bank was so overgrown with vigorous wild plants, with such poor soil and the Hitchmough plants mostly gone, that we didn’t bother trying to re-sow it. We did, however, add a widely-spaced planting of hawthorn, wayfaring trees, wild roses and butterfly bushes to create more habitat and another layer of canopy on all three north banks. These are sporadically establishing though have failed in places due to summer drought and increasingly poor soil. Below, staff removing dock, burdock and hemlock stems.
A wild, habitat-rich, consistent space that was formally a ‘failed’ bank and dull lawn. You can see a clump of white flowered hemlock on either side of the path. These need cutting down before the seed spreads further once the plant has finished flowering but it is a more natural space than before. On the left, a wide range of grasses, nettles on both sides for butterflies, and on the right a slope covered in Gallium album (hedge bedstraw) provide excellent ground cover and flowers later but also lesser amounts of the undesirable cleavers (Gallium aparine). 

Conclusions made 

So was all this worth it? Roughly £1500 spent on a copious amount of seed and a lot of hard work. 

We now have a diverse, constantly evolving meadow with a broad range of species, both introduced and already present. If it eventually does become too vigorous and overgrown for our recreational space it can always be cut back for a while, but hopefully this won’t be necessary. 

Before, a vast amount of time was pointlessly spent each week with most of the park staff trying to hand weed these giant banks like huge flowerbeds. With so much else to do in the park this simply wasn’t sustainable or realistic, and the banks were quickly returning to wildness however hard we worked. All we were doing by intensively cultivating these banks was preventing them from becoming useful habitats for wildlife. 

For several years we had a wonderful if rather artificially dense display of flowers that evolved over time. 

The formerly large area of short grass would have taken a ride-on mower a whole morning every 3 or 4 weeks to cut. Now it takes me an hour to whizz along the remaining paths once a month. I’ve actually made the paths a certain width, so people walking along them keep them pretty short without any cutting at all. 

But we have a few days of hard work each year cutting and raking the hay to try to remove enough hay and the build up of nutrients, to keep the grass thin enough for plenty of flowers. Increasingly over time, we will also need more time to control by cutting down and removing the seed of the more vigorous, invasive plants. 

Ideally we would cut it twice a year, not just in spring but also late autumn, but this is very difficult with so much other work such as cutting all the other meadows and picking up a vast amount of leaves each year.

Ideally we would have much better machinery than our knackered handful of strimmers and one mower to cut and collect the hay more efficiently and sensitively, but I will talk about this in later blogs. 

I think the experiment also shows that we have the soil we have, the pre-existing seed bank we have and the range of wild plants we have, suitable to local conditions. We can introduce a wider range of wild native plants by sowing seed, but often nature knows best and will try to find its own natural balance of plants over time … So then our job is to gently adjust this balance so it remains suitable for a busy park. 

And the most important thing about this project is wildlife, so has this new meadow been successful at creating more habitat and is more wildlife present? 

I often don’t have enough time to observe, so this is the job of the Southwark biodiversity team, and local ecologists and wildlife experts and enthusiasts to judge. But despite my lack of ecological expertise I can confirm that there is much more wildlife in this space. 

Bees and grasshoppers and many other insects are present in the longer grass, and the now, not constantly disturbed, north banks, are buzzing with life when I walk across them apart from in very hot periods where the plants shrivel and the insect life quickly dwindles. 

I see more butterflies and smaller moths fluttering around this space than before. Hopefully these numbers will increase over time as the range of plants most useful to them increases such as nettles and garlic mustard. 

There are multiple wrens now nesting in the shrubs or in thick patches of tall grass along the slopes. There are groups of sparrows and other small birds foraging for insects and seeds. 

A few weeks ago I saw a jay flying between the trees perhaps thinking about extending its territory. Several times I’ve seen kestrels hovering above the meadow and the slopes of the mounds. I see people foraging for food such as dandelion leaves and roots and mallow leaves or medicinal plants such as mugwort. More people walk though the space. More people sit and relax in the space now it is wilder, with more shelter from the noisy traffic of the nearby road. It would be nice to put some more large logs in this area for seating as the original ones have perished / been eaten by lesser stag beetles. In the next blog I hope to discuss all the other grass cutting experiments we have done more recently and discuss best practices and machinery for maintenance. I will also do a list of the majority of the wildflowers I have found growing in the park.

Many thanks for reading.

Gregory Smith, Head Gardener.

Making meadows

A wildlife-friendly approach to Burgess Park maintenance

Photo of flowers.
The wonderful new westside meadow built by Groundworks in the delayed last part of the park redesign

Burgess Park is a large, 24-hour, much frequented green space built in stages over what was previously dense housing and industrial land to eventually become the park we know today. As a result, the soil is difficult to cultivate, with, in many places, the history of the past thinly concealed beneath a layer of compacted topsoil. At around the turn of this century, the space was redesigned and the new park grown on top, but with much of the same soil below.

Wild banks with a mix of wild and introduced plants with more wildflower experiments beyond 

The redesigned park1 has become a functioning tapestry of recreational space and wilder areas, short and long grass, redefined or new woodlands and lots of other new planting. This includes the famous James Hitchmough2 being tasked with designing large non-native prairies to interlink with the improved meadows and wilder areas. He worked with the park gardeners to create the beautiful St George’s prairie, and experimented with non-native mass plantings in various other areas with the LDA contractors. The redesign was very wildlife-aware, and had a looser, more modern approach compared to the typical short grass, flowerbeds and trees combination of many urban green spaces, though we have these things too. There was a mixture of native and many new interesting plants in meadows, and on many new mounds and slopes and dips across the park.

The LDA designed new park — tapestry of recreational and wilder areas 

Over the last two and a bit decades the park has aged, and this ambitious planting has matured and either sustained itself or faded, with nature often having a greater say on the appropriate balance of wildness or cultivation than the gardeners. St George’s has established well, though it is a little tatty these days, with native grasses joining the party and plenty of brambles and tree suckers to remove, invasive native plants taking over in places and gaps appearing in the planting under all the large trees. But a beautiful and clever prairie planting of mainly American perennials that flower in a succession from spring until frost has sustained itself over time. Other Hitchmough areas have persisted well, semi-lasted or faded into wildness, with the wildlife benefiting from our aesthetic loss. We have continued to maintain these areas in some way too, or redefine them in some way as habitat. 

Hitchmough’s St. George’s prairie — Lady’s bedstraw and Coneflowers
A great wall of Goldenrod later in summer at St George’s prairie

It is interesting to observe the relationship between plants that grow naturally and what is planted by humans: how this influences the ecology of the space (how much wildlife is present), and how this will change with the weather over time. Burgess is a great place to do this, with the multitude of different meadows, slopes, dips and flowerbeds all with their own balance of wildness to cultivation. Some of these areas we maintain intensively and others have been left to grow as wild as possible, and most areas are somewhere in between, with a mixture of introduced plants growing happily alongside those appearing naturally.  And beyond this intended planting or sowing there is also the turf itself, which is not just grass but potentially a whole range of other wild plants, either growing away happily in the lawn, or in seeds waiting to germinate. 

Various meadows on slopes and new wildflower seeding experiments beyond

So as the gardeners we maintain these mixed plant populations and try to make them attractive to humans as well as useful for wildlife. There are many questions we can ask to try and do this. These could include:

  • What is the best balance of native and cultivated plants?
  • What should we weed out or keep?
  • Which flowers are useful to pollinating insects? 
  • Can non-native plants significantly lengthen the flowering season? 
  • How can we best maintain the meadows, to maximise flowering and wildlife potential?
  • How can we best cut the short grass to provide more wildflowers?
  • How can we best manage the woodlands and wetlands for more habitat?
  • How sustainable is the park as a habitat and food source for wildlife, and for us? 
  • How will the planting at Burgess evolve over time with people pressure and climate change? 
Sown cornfield annuals and False chamomile, between the westside mounds and Albany Road five years ago

Burgess Park’s wildlife potential is limited by its location in the centre of a city, surrounded by tall buildings and busy roads. Increasingly tall buildings around the park will also increasingly block off wildlife from making it here. The park is also potentially full of people on a sunny day, and can be very busy and noisy. The soil is compacted and full of rubble and potentially toxic chemicals. We are in the centre of London, where it is hot and dry, with not enough rain. So there are many factors that limit the amount of wildlife visiting or living at the park.

But despite the location and other limiting factors, we are doing pretty well in comparison to many green spaces … with the butterfly / bird and bug experts reporting back positively on their findings here. (If you are interested in surveying this wildlife, join one of the Butterfly Conservation transect walks, or connect with local bird spotting and other wildlife experts online). It is fantastic to hear that we have any wildlife at all on our slice of urban land far from the country.

A Holly Blue butterfly — one of the many species of butterfly we see at the park laying eggs on Lucerne (Alfafa), photo courtesy of Simon Saville, Butterfly Conservation

But generally there is a noticeable and worrying decline in wildlife, with fewer insects, bees and birds apparent each year. There has been an obvious decline in insect life especially, which has a knock-on effect on the creatures that feed on them, such as birds. This has been especially apparent after the sequence of worryingly hot summers. Meadows and wild areas formerly buzzing with life now seem to have much lower populations of insects.

So it’s really important that we do what we can to provide as much habitat for wild creatures to enable them to survive in our park and to try to sustain the tree of life that ultimately sustains us.

So what can we do as gardeners in the park to create a more diverse and wildlife friendly space?

Gardening is a strange pursuit. We generally dig up all the wildness and native plants, and replace them with neat and cultivated plants, often from elsewhere in the world. But local flora has evolved to sustain local fauna, and many animals depend on specific plants for survival. 

Essex Skipper butterfly and Crab spider on a thistle at Burgess Park, photo by Simon Saville

The longer I am a gardener and environmentalist, the more I’m interested in what grows naturally, as well as which human-planted or sown, native or non-native plants can be added in order to create more diversity, food sources and habitat for wildlife. Going back to James Hitchmough’s large scale non-native sowing and planting: what is perhaps most interesting is which of these plants will persist in our space over time, merging with our native plants and continuing to grow. Will they sustain themselves or even spread into the surrounding space? In a wildlife context, of course, we have to be careful not to introduce invasive species that will outgrow our local plants, but could we add some non-local native plants and non-natives to wilder areas, to supercharge nature by creating more habitat and food, especially as the climate changes and our range of balance of native plants adjusts anyway? Could we make our wildness more beautiful and diverse again instead of letting it fade? Where do the best plants to try to introduce come from, in terms of having similar soil and climate conditions? 

Painted Lady butterfly on a Verbena bonairiensis, or Argentinian vervain, photo by Simon Saville

We are trying to find a successful balance between cultivation and wildness that maximises the park’s ecological potential. If we do introduce non-native plants it’s important that they are good for wildlife too.

So what more can we do? We have meadows and prairies and woodlands, plenty of wild areas in the park. But there is one type of planting, and the biggest area of all, with the most potential to grow more wild plants: the short grass areas or lawns.

In amongst the grass species regularly cut to grow thick and low, to create a green (or often these days more parched and yellow) lawn, are a whole multitude of other wild plants growing away secretly amongst the grass. These ‘lawn weeds’ are smaller broad-leafed plants that can tolerate being mown regularly (in our park about once a month). And there is also seed waiting in the soil below the grass from times past, waiting for an opportunity to germinate. Some seed can remain dormant for great periods. So what viable ecological history and diversity is there still hidden under our lawns? If we let the grass grow longer than usual, some of these plants will say hello with their flowers. So hidden underneath this turf monoculture is all of nature’s remaining wildness and potential to sustain itself. 

It is very important that with the destruction of wildness and colony collapse of so many species we make use of this potential to sustain some more wildlife. 

Leaving lawns to grow long and provide habitat and flowers for wildlife is very topical, with so much concern about wildlife and habitat loss. On social media are endless images of impossibly beautiful meadows alongside neat cut lawns comparing the two, with uncut grass being good and lawns being bad. Anyone on a mower is basically the devil.

Burgess Park gardener on a ride on mower.
The devil on horseback

But rather than cutting being evil and not cutting being good, some kind of cutting has to happen. Nearly all green space is managed. A lawn if left uncut will become a meadow. Over time it will thicken up, and the range of species will change. Shrubs and trees will germinate and grow. Slowly the meadow will become a copse, and then a woodland, then eventually a thick forest. The grass needs to be cut to still be a meadow. The question is: when and how frequently, and with what equipment, to maximise its wildlife value? 

Close up of flowers
A small patch of uncut lawn in spring

So most meadows are actually extensively managed spaces with some kind of maintenance regime, or they wouldn’t be meadows for very long, and many wildflowers benefit from this cycle of cutting and ploughing. I wish we had things like ploughs at the park! Going back in time, the UK had a huge amount of these meadows, wheat and hay fields and foraging meadows, without the use of chemicals to control what grows. Most of these have now been replaced with modern agriculture, with mono-culture and chemical spraying, and most of the wildflowers have gone. 

With these traditional meadows gone, we rely on the remainder of our green space and wild places to sustain the diversity of the wildlife that used to live in the old meadows. And much of the recreational green space in the UK is unimaginatively cut short grass and little else. But there is so much wildlife potential hiding beneath these tidy English lawns. We just have to let some of them grow. 

Photo showing paths across the mounds
Grass at various heights to create a softer, wilder space with plenty of flowers on the westside mounds

There are hundreds of acres of such grass at Burgess, and we still have to cut a lot of it regularly enough to stay a lawn. Contractually we are obliged to do so at a certain frequency. The park is for people and recreation, not just wildlife. People want short grass to comfortably sit, picnic or sunbathe, exercise, play sports, walk pets. The short grass areas are also useful for larger events and festivals. The park also needs to be easily accessible, and it also needs to be open enough to be safe to walk through, especially considering that Burgess is a 24-hour space.

The great lawn on a busy summer’s day

We can have both recreational lawns and plentiful habitat for wildlife too, but we need to ask many questions about how we cut the grass. 

  • Beyond the more clearly defined meadow areas what else can we do to encourage more wildflowers and wildlife?
  • How much short grass does there need to be to keep people happy and the park safe?
  • Does every last blade of grass need cutting regularly or can a more loose and dynamic approach be taken?
  • How often does the grass need cutting to keep it under control?
  • How easy is it to cut the grass short again if we temporarily let it grow long?
  • Do cuttings need collecting and reusing somehow, or can they be left in situ; and how does this affect the soil and more plants growing?
  • How messy do different approaches look? Can we tolerate a bit of hay for the sake of wildlife?
  • Does leaving grass to grow long create other problems, with more litter, toileting and more anti-social behaviour?
  • Can the grass-cutting regime be changed but still be understandable and realistically achievable for the grass cutters?
  • Do we have the machinery that can cope with cutting and potentially clearing longer grass areas?
  • How are the plants that appear affected by location, the soil and environmental conditions?
  • Most importantly, once we cut the grass at lower frequencies, what different wild plants appear and what wildlife do they attract?
A mass of daises in an area left uncut in spring

So we have left many areas to experiment. This year we:

  • Continued to experiment with encouraging wildflowers along Albany Road in the west side of the park, after creating a large new meadow between the mounds and the road (there was previously just short grass). This has involved various re-seeding, and cutting and collecting at different times, with different amounts of hay-raking.
  • Continued to leave various other previous short areas of grass un-mown or mown at different frequencies to see what wildflowers appeared. These areas included:
  1. The grass all the way around the car park
  2. A large triangle of grass opposite St George’s church 
  3. The steep slopes next to the BMX track 
  4. Areas of previously cut grass around the tennis court cafe 
  5. The complete south-facing bank of the great lawn
  6. Much larger meadow patches at Rust Square 

We also:

  • Were slower to cut the grass in April/May — cutting as little as possible or leaving large areas uncut 
  • Cut around significant patches of wildflowers when we found them throughout the season
  • Experimented with hay: can it be turned into a rough ‘strulch’ for flowerbeds or used as a mulch around trees?
  • Observed the changing ratios of plants, native and non-native, in all of our more permanent longer grass, meadow areas, prairies, hollows and banks 

The basic conclusions made from of all this grass-cutting experimentation are interesting, and, I think, show that:

  • Experimenting with grass-cutting heights, frequencies and techniques with the typical range of equipment and staff available is perfectly achievable in most green spaces with a bit of thought and a more dynamic approach
  • There is a fear that if we don’t keep the grass cut short and regular everything will grow out of control; there will be chaos instead of order and then the world will likely end! This is far from true. Grass can easily be left to grow longer, so the wild plants can flower and seed, and then be cut short again when appropriate with suitably powerful mowers or other better suited equipment such as scythes and flails if available
Making a mess — Cutting longer grass shorter just creates a bit of hay, which looks a bit messy for a few weeks, then disappears. Alternatively, the cutting short could be done in a few stages so there is no hay, or the cuttings can be raked and collected. One thing our tidy minds should be able to tolerate is a bit of hay in the first place, if it means we can have many more meadows that we don’t have time to rake

Making our lawns more wildlife friendly is perfectly achievable with a bit of thought and a ripping up of old grounds-maintenance contracts that specify that all grass must be cut low. 

With a more multi-layered approach to grass cutting all kinds of wild plants can appear. The lawns can cease to be dead zones for nature and become useful habitats. These useful habitats will link all the intentional planting in the park to create a more complete ecology.

But in many places longer grass is inappropriate, or the resulting meadow not impressive-looking to us or floriferous for wildlife. Wildness can cause other problems with rubbish and questionable human behaviour! A lot depends on the site: how it is used by people, the presence of the right conditions for specific plants to grow, and whether those wild plants are still there in the first place, having been reduced to short lawns for so long.

In the next blog I’d like to discuss these meadow experiments in more detail and how successful they have been, as well as suggesting the best practice for cutting meadows and an updated approach for short-grass cutting that we have started using in small areas of the park already. 

Gregory Smith 
Head Gardener, Burgess Park

Chicory and Wild rocket on the west facing westside slopes

1 Landscape Institute case study, LDA Design Consulting LTD, Burgess Park Regeneration Project
https://my.landscapeinstitute.org/case-study/burgess-park-regeneration-project/0a156c22-d37b-e911-a99b-00224801ab04

2 The Landscape Institute, The Landscape Legacy of the Olympics, Part 7, The Olympic Planting Strategy, Olympic Park designers Professors Hitchmough and Dunnett interviewed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsuU3APsA5c 

REF 2014 impact case studies — The development of new, designed sustainable plant communities for use in urban greenspace
https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=23133

Celebration 26 March 2023 Passmore Edwards bicentenary

Old sepia image of the library and overwritten with event details
Join Friends of Burgess Park celebrations Sunday 23 March 2023

Celebrate the Grade II listed building and it’s benefactor Passmore Edwards.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Passmore Edwards’ birth on 24th March 1823, and Friends of Burgess Park is joining with others around the UK to celebrate the Passmore Edwards 200 Festival. We’ll be holding a programme of events based at the old library, baths and washhouse on Wells Way on Sunday 26th March. There’s an exhibition about the man and his legacy, children’s activities, a commemorative tree-planting, and a reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book, refreshments and more.

Bike Tour 2-4pm We’ve also organised a short Bike Tour around three of Passmore Edwards’ south London buildings, guided by a renowned local architect. You can book now for the bike tour 2pm to 4pm on Eventbrite – places are limited to 25, so book early!

Commemorative Tree Planting 4.00- 4.30pm- Across the country Rowan trees are being planted to celebrate the Passmore Edwards bicentenary, join us from 4pm for the tree planting and reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book Fire Rush, and refreshments.

Exhibition 1-5.30pm – Find out more about Passmore Edwards with an exhibition on loan from the Passmore Edwards legacy. Plus more about the old library bath and washhouse building its history and future role benefitting local people.

Read more about Passmore Edwards and the library.

Anti-littering graphic

Tackling litter

Michael Faraday primary school art work for anti-litter banners
Thank you Year 3 pupils (summer 2022) and for helping litterpic. See the banners in Albany Road near Giraffe House and Wells Way near the old library.


FOBP weekly litterpic Every Monday morning 8am to 9am

FOBP provide litterpics, gloves and bags.
Meet at Chumleigh Gardens – in the gardens behind the behind the cafe.