ConservationThat field in the country, so uniformly smooth and green, that you see from your car window is, from some points of view, a desert composed of just a few strains of highly bred grasses and supporting little or no wildlife. How different this is from the fields of rural Ireland among which Polly Devlin grew up 50 years ago!
Then, the fields were meadows filled with an abundance of wild flowers, butterflies and insects of every kind as well as a myriad small animals and birds. The countryside was alive with sound - natural sounds rather than man-made noise. Devlin writes with intense nostalgia of this landscape of her youth at a time when the word "pollution" was hardly in anyone's vocabulary and before intensive farming, aided by government and European subsidies, transformed it. She regrets that few children of today will ever begin to know what a traditional Irish meadow once looked like for almost all of them have been destroyed.
Nearly 25 years ago, Andy Garnett and Polly Devlin bought a house in rural England, about two hours out of London. Adjoining the house was an old meadow that they were eventually able to acquire.
Whereas most meadows in England contain just five or six plant species, this one contained a rich mixture of no fewer than 88 plant species. With careful husbandry over the years, they have been able to increase this number of species to 130 - as rich a diversity of plants together with associated insects, birds and animals as one is likely to see, many of which have disappeared elsewhere or whose survival is endangered.
They were spurred into the meadow's active conservation by the sight of an adjoining farm being ruthlessly "improved" for conventional agriculture. They saw, with horror, hedges being scoured out, trees being uprooted and chopped, ancient footpaths being dug up, natural ponds being filled with concrete and rubbish, old grassland being ploughed up, drained and fertilised with chemical fertilisers - all done in the name of pure profit. A consequence of this approach is often, on account of our current economic circumstances, that phenomenon of the modern world, the "food mountain".
GARNETT AND DEVLIN describe the processes that they undertook to conserve and improve their particular wildflower meadow. They describe the annual cutting and grazing routine they have established to maximise the diversity of life in their field. For example, they allow the whole field of plants to develop naturally each year until the month of August when it is cut or mowed. After this the meadow is grazed by a small flock of sheep whose droppings add a relative amount of natural fertilisation to the field. When winter comes the sheep are removed to allow the meadow to start into growth again in the following spring.
Then, the annual cycle repeats itself.
The authors also give general advice to the reader who wants to create a wild meadow or conserve and improve an existing one. They warn that hard work, persistence and patience are required. Attention must be given to many details. But they offer the reassurance that it is all worth it.
Surprising to many of us will be their recommendation that the soil of the meadow must be allowed to remain low in nutrients. This encourages a diversity of plants, and so of animals, insects and birds, that is not seen in a richly composted or fertilised field. They also recommend increasing the diversity of habitat within a meadow by planting some trees to create a woodland habitat in one area and digging a few small ponds in another.
The central section of the book consists of a diary of a year in the life of their meadow. This is illustrated by a succession of photographs including overall views as well as close-up details. Photographs of dried and pressed flowers and plants from the meadow, in a separate section, also illustrate the diary. This is most unusual and original - dried and pressed flowers characterise esoteric botanical treatises or the detailed field studies of serious botanists. Here, they are used successfully to illustrate a book for the general reader. At the end of the book is a helpful list of wildflowers coded as to whether they are suitable for wet, dry, open or shaded habitats. A short glossary of botanical terms will assist the reader new to the field.
THE USUAL WELL-REHEARSED questions remain. Doesn't an improved agricultural field, despite its "polluted" status, provide more food for hungry mouths than a natural meadow? Isn't the natural climax vegetation of a temperate climate area like Ireland not deciduous woodland rather than meadow? Isn't a meadow maintained through man's intervention in the form of correctly timed cutting and the subsequent introduction of animals for grazing? How can those with small urban or suburban gardens participate in the wild meadow movement? They need to be addressed in another forum and should not be allowed to detract from the value of this inspiring book. It ends with an eloquent epilogue in which Devlin describes sleeping, during warm summer nights, in the Irish gypsy caravan that she has placed in the middle of her meadow. There, as the moon rises, she listens to the strange sounds of the night air: "The cuckoo calls sometimes, an amazing sound at night, and the owl and the wood pigeon. Sometimes the air is torn by a dreadful fight between two creatures and the dogs are instantly alert. So am I. It sounds like blue murder. But I go straight back to sleep. I have become so accustomed to these strange sounds at night that they accompany me into my dreams".
The attention given by Polly Devlin and her husband to the conservation and improvement of their meadow has brought its personal reward in the momentary recreation of the joys of the lough-shore meadows of her childhood in Co Tyrone.
A Year in the Life of an English Meadow By Andy Garnett and Polly Devlin Frances Lincoln, 128pp. £20
Patrick Bowe is the author or co-author of nine books on gardens. His latest, Gardens of the Roman World, is about the gardens of ancient Rome