Meadow mania … I’m developing a worrying case

Symptoms seem to be excessive worry about nutrification and anyone fiddling in ‘my’ meadow that’s not me. 

All the grass in the garden and the various patches of lawn we have were growing in an unchecked manor. And since we have quite a few areas for unkept exuberance both Mr McGregor and me decided to find a local company to do a mow. But while I wasn’t paying attention MrMG asked them to cut a path through the meadow… my meadow. An ok idea except they didn’t collect the grass, so there were rivulets of clippings on the ground.

This sent me into a spin…as these will decay and nutrify in patches the magnificent meadow. Species diversity arises for porosity. In poor soils less aggressive and rarer plants get a chance to grow. 

So I found my self frantically scooping up these cuttings and putting them in the hedge in a sacrificial pile.  It took ages and new scrapping kept on coming to light.

They may look like inoffensive dried remains but they are not!

Then second time the grass was cut it happened again. Now I spend unreasonable amounts of time worrying that the species composition on the path will be degraded. The other problems were…MrMG and a friend scything a path luckily in meadow two which is of lower value but still they left swathes of stuff lying on the ground, creating a hot pile of decaying vegetive matter. 

Then yesterday I notice the thing I dread most…when the African MRMG has bushfires. He used to do it often in my tiny terraced garden in oxford…suddenly burn something off with a flick of a lighter - an old shrub, patch of grass, anything flammable really. A habit he could perfect in coastal forest where high grass forms a tinderbox for bush fires so you have to strategically burn to create firebreaks. However a domestic setting does not lend itself to carefree arson. 

Shock horror yesterday I observe black scorched patches around meadow two where he’s been bloody well burning. My meadow mania kicked in at full throttle…burning would intensify and desiccate nutrients so they can be easily whooshed into the soil upsetting and delicate seedbank and giving the plant bully boys a boost. 

Once I’d tracked him down a nasty exchange followed with him barking that I don’t know everything about land management. Indeed I don’t but I’m even more determined to try to erect no-go zones or rather areas of responsibility. He has chickens and wall construction and vegetable patches and I have the meadows. If only I could erect some subtle but high voltage electric fencing…