Raking Up Grass: a Community Activity

There's something very pleasant about getting outside with a group of others, on a  late October day to rake up cut grass, and we did it not just once but twice. Why are we doing this, and what do we hope to achieve? We are hoping to create wild flower areas among the grass that will be left uncut until September, this will benefit wildlife, giving it places to live and feed. This year, as we were locked down, many people who would normally be doing the grass cutting, weren't able to do so, stage one of our meadow making was thus achieved, the grass grew long, and looked fabulous on the Evelyn Street embankment bounded by Marlborough Road on one side, and Marlborough Lane on the other side. We even saw pyramidal orchids in two distinct places, and persuaded the council to leave the grass cutting until later on in the year. Some people felt it looked messy, but many people got the point that if everywhere is neat and tidy, with short grass, there is no room for wildlife, especially bees and butterflies that we really notice.

Wildflowers don't grow well on fertile ground, and are often out competed by grasses in those circumstances, which is why people often sow yellow rattle, a parasite on grass roots, to reduce the competition. We knew that once the grass had been cut, we needed to rake it off to prevent it breaking down and enriching the soil, hence the raking party on 17 October. This was advertised via social media and drew a great group of helpers with rakes.

We piled up the raked grass into piles to be collected by the Park Rangers

You can see how much grass there is to rake!

Above a good action shot of Tim

Here we have Tom, Neil and Jane pausing for a well earned break.

More raking and more posing for photos

There is a limit to how long you can keep on raking.

When we surveyed the areas, there was at least as much again that needed raking, so this time we set up a leaflet drop in the area and met on the morning of the 25 October.

Amazingly, given the recent wild weather, we were greeted by another lovely morning, for yet more raking, with an emphasis on revealing some bare soil:

Here are a group of us raking the area behind the bus stop on Marlbrough Road

On the other side of the hill, there were more rakers

You can see mounds of grass forming

And here's Jane looking happy raking up grass.

At the end of 2 sessions of raking, lots of people who had joined in commented on how good it felt to take part in physical activity, and we were able to socially distance and talk to each other.

The final stage of the process too place on Monday, a group of is met to sow some of the seeds I had bought from Emorsgate Seeds. We bought EM2 and EMF2 I think and sprinkled them around the areas we ahd raked hard, and in some cases we had dug holes for seed sowing. The area resembles a patch where a crazed badger has been looking for food. Below there's a posed photo showing seed sowing,

We also walked down Pipers Way sowing more seeds as we went, so let's see what the spring brings. We might do some extra sowing then, hopefully we will see some wild flowers and bees and butterflies.