Unimproved grassland

[Hornbeam]

Depending on where you live, you may find it difficult to find any unimproved grassland in your area. The application of fertilisers and herbicides has made much of the countryside hostile to many wild flowers. Even some of our nature reserves are on land that was "improved" to grow more. If that applies to your home patch - check out the local churchyards and old cemeteries.

My town cemetery is one of those huge Victorian ones with sentimental gothic memorials, but it is unimproved grassland. Yesterday, among other joys I came across a large colony of Meadow Saxifrage! I had no idea what they were and took them for some kind of freesia or garden escape. Now I reckon there cannot be any others for miles and miles in the enormous rape fields that pass for "countryside" today

[eeyore]

i agree that cemetaries are great sanctuaies for wildlife but can they truly be described as unimproved - surely they have had hundreds of years of additional enrichment in the shape of large peices of dead organic matter encourage to decay in their sub soil horizons

[thunder]

Originally Posted by eeyore

i agree that cemetaries are great sanctuaies for wildlife but can they truly be described as unimproved - surely they have had hundreds of years of additional enrichment in the shape of large peices of dead organic matter encourage to decay in their sub soil horizons

Isn't six feet a bit deeper than subsoil?

henrya

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by eeyore

i agree that cemetaries are great sanctuaies for wildlife but can they truly be described as unimproved - surely they have had hundreds of years of additional enrichment in the shape of large peices of dead organic matter encourage to decay in their sub soil horizons

Well just to take you a little too seriously The deep digging will have had an effect but as the soil only gets a limited degree of mixing - it tends to go back in the hole in the order it came out - this is no more significant than the effect of medieval ploughing. In post medieval cemetaries the enriching material is usually too deep to affect most grassland species and it requires arboreal species to bring the nutrient to the surface - and even then is only significant if the leaf litter has been allowed to build up.

Some heavily used medieval cemetaries - graves dug into graves dug into graves - and often no more than 50cm deep - will not stand out as 'unimproved' but many 18th and 19th C burial grounds that have been allowed to go wild are probably as good as any wild meadows that have been poorly managed for a couple of decades.

CM

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by thunder

Isn't six feet a bit deeper than subsoil?

henrya

possibly -it depends where in the coutry you are i guess - round here 6 inches is bed rock

[Hornbeam]

Yep - the earth removed goes back in the hole and it ain't "improved" to grow cereals and rape. The grass is real grass too and not mono culture rye grass. That means "unimproved" to me.

[IanS]

We have a large cemetery at the back of us and find that they manage the place very well indeed. Ours too has meadow saxifage growing in it and this has recently finished flowering. One side of the cemetery is kept neat and tidy whereas the much older part has been dedicated to wildlife where the grass is allowed to grow long well into the summer months. This has encouraged a wealth of butterfly's and moths along with grasshoppers and many other species I can't identify. The plant life is mainly dominated by grasses but during the summer months there are a profusion of wild flowers growing in there too. All in all an excellent place for a wander!

[Hobjob]

The churchyard at Westleton, near Minsmere, is carefully
managed as a wild flower sanctuary and is well worth a
visit - particularly lovely harebells.
(and nicely thatched roof)

They also use the church for a wild flower festival in
June / July (most flowers coming out of enthusiasts
gardens).