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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.

Peregrine Falcon

Birds of Burgess 2021 Review

Blog: Dave Clark

Writing this in January 2022 the focus of birding interest centres around the lake at Burgess Park. Geese, gulls and cormorants increase their numbers at this time of year as they battle to survive the natural elements and human impositions before the high energy sapping spring arrives. Spring, when the days are longer, spring, when optimism fills the air, spring, when not just the lake but the whole park resonates to the natural sounds and movements of birds. Spring is when the lifestage focus shifts from one of survival to breeding; finding territories, finding partners, building nests, laying eggs and having kids…………well chicks. With this in mind and the short winter days and long nights providing an opportune mental space for human reflection it `s appropriate to mull over and review the multitude of bird highlights that over the 2021 seasons Burgess provided.

Mediterranean Gull - Josep del Hoyo

Mediterranean Gull                                                                              Josep del Hoyo Macaulay Library

Common Goldeneye Adult male

Goldeneye                                                                                               Dorian Anderson Macaulay Library

Eighty five species were seen across the year by twenty two observers who provided hundreds of important records of these sightings. There were twelve different long distant spring migrants recorded, either staying for a few days, using the park as a feeding stepping stone or remaining until summer to breed, nine different species of warbler, seven different species of gulls, five different species of birds of prey, two different flycatchers and a partridge in a pear tree………..ahem, not really,  but a pheasant was indeed seen!

Common Redstart - eBird

Common Redstart                                                                                 K. Al Dhaheri Macaulay Library

Spotted Flycatcher - Saurabh Sawant

Spotted Flycatcher                                                                                S. Sawant Macaulay Library

However these numbers are pretty, lifeless and unemotive without context. For the true importance of Burgess Park as an avian hotspot and green performer to be understood we should compare these figures and the interest that they have engendered to other green spaces. Eighty five is a tick list that would be expected in more `wilder` and `natural` areas or rural arcadian idylls not in an urban park, indeed in these traditionally more cosmeticized environments forty to fifty species would be a more likely expectation. Neither are these numbers just birders ticks in a little black book or competitive markers but more importantly denote what can be achieved in urban green spaces at a time when 67% of the UK`s bird species are deemed of conservation concern.

These heartening results do not come by chance. Burgess Park has locational advantages; it is not far from Thames and is characterised by superb vistas which allows birds sightlines of the lake and green areas. But it is the considered management and provision of various habitats which are the key factors in attracting the abundance and diversity of birds,  ……scrub, long grass, wild flower meadows, richly planted gardens and ofcourse the important water feature. It is no surprise that many of the rarer species encountered were found in the less sterile environments, environments which we have been institutionalized to believe as rough and unkempt. These pejorative terms mask the positives, we should be thinking rich, diverse and life affirming. Scrub is good is the mantra.

For these birds, several of which are long distance migrants, wintering south of the Sahara, to continue to be attracted, these habitats need to be retained and maintained by diligent management and hard work. Management that does not have dominion but understands that nature is at the apex of importance of any green space.

If anyone would like to take part in citizen science by recording bird sightings, the references below should help and if a full annual bird list is required check out this link:

https://ebird.org/hotspot/L7578420

or contact me at: dave@mailbox.co.uk.

Peregrine Falcon                                                                                      Joshua Stacy Macaulay Library

Resources:

London Birders Wiki

GIGL

BTO

ebird

Squirrel in tree

Love your woodlands

so much more than lots of trees

Wild boar, auroch and red deer shaped our ancient woodlands. They grazed on the saplings that sprung up in the clearings caused by falling trees and kept the soil open to the sky. Wildflowers and berries thrived in the sunshine attracting more wildlife. Stone-age hunters found it profitable to hunt where the animals gathered and were able to keep the clearings open using flint axes. Later on, Bronze age people developed the clearings into places to cultivate rough pasture and crops.* 

Closed canopy woodland
Under  the shade of a closed canopy, very little grows. Trees are not regenerated. Small areas like this add to the experience of walking in a wood, but it would be rather gloomy if covering a large area.

A completely closed canopy is poor in biodiversity as without sunlight, there will be no plants for forage on the woodland floor. The only insects to be found will be those that feed on decaying leaf litter and their predators. The mighty English Oak will not grow here, their seedlings grow best in more open conditions, often under the protection of a Blackberry thicket. ‘The thorn is mother to the Oak.’ When you find an Oak tree in the middle of a wood, it was there first, other trees grew around it.

Break in the canopy
Here, the break in the canopy is allowing regeneration of the woodland floor. Alkanet and nettles flower, encouraging butterflies to lay their eggs and young trees to grow from seed.

Throughout the many centuries since, under-woodsmen have harvested the underwood, taking Hazel, Ash and Chestnut to make hurdles, fences, rustic furniture, firewood and charcoal. The standards, Oak and Elm were left to grow on into timber for ship and house building or to become veteran trees. Felling all the underwood may seem like vandalism, but letting the light in regenerates the woodland as the trees quickly re-grow.

Woodland edge
The most biodiverse part of woodland is the woodland edge. Abundant plant cover provides food and protection for small animals, insects and birds. Birds will feast on the wild cherry on the right then spread their stones to create more trees. This is a good place to spot Speckled Wood Butterflies.

The woodland in Burgess Park West is a young Broad Leaf woodland, planted to imitate ancient woodland, but it will be many decades before it develops veteran trees and the complex wildlife that they support. Similarly, with the plants that indicate ancient woodland – Wood anemone, Herb Paris, Twayblade, Purple Orchid, They need deep, moist, leaf mould interlaced with fungal mycelium and soil micro-organisms to grow in. 

Adjacent to the Burgess Park West Wood is this area of wild carrot, Viper’s bugloss, Bird’s foot trefoil, Knapweed & Clover. Ants, spiders, shield insects and beetles in abundance are a vital supply for the hungry nestlings waiting in the wood. Pollinators turn the flowers into seeds that keep the birds fed through autumn and winter. Common Blue butterfly caterpillars feed on Bird’s foot trefoil, Painted lady on Viper’s bugloss and Clouded yellow butterfly on clover.
Dog Rose
This thicket of Dog Rose would provide enough cover for a Black Cap, nicknamed ‘Northern Nightingale’ to nest. There are quite a few of them in this part of London.
Hawthorn
Hawthorn provides fodder for animals, edible berries, and is a food plant of the Black-veined white butterfly caterpillar.

Sunshine is a vital agent. In a coppiced woodland, sections of the woodland called Coups are cut every 7-12 years in rotation. Under this system, there are always young tree shoots within the reach of grazing animals somewhere in the woods. Other trees and plants are mature enough to produce nuts and berries to feed animals such as dormice. Somewhere in the wood, areas of thick scrub will have sprung up into a site where nightingales can nest. Full exposure to sunlight every decade is enough to sustain bluebells and other woodland flora. In neglected woods, the flora will eventually be shaded out along with all the wildlife it supports.

Coppicing is hard work and under woodsmen a rare breed. In Blean Woods near Canterbury, things are going full circle and European Bison are being re-introduced to look after the woods. Unfortunately, natural habitats are becoming more fragmented by roads and buildings, so it will take a lot of changes to make it possible for native mammals like the hedgehog or the wild boar to return to this bit of London. The plants and trees that have lasted with us into the 21st Century have adapted to our ancient methods of managing the land and to the animals that live on it. But, they can’t keep up with our present rate of change and we run the risk of destroying these beautiful habitats if we don’t understand and fight for what it takes to keep them alive.

Jenny

* See A Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright