Far Ground Story

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Wildflower meadow

Our concerns at the start about the poor state of the grass and lack of wild flowers on the field proved to be entirely unfounded.

The field had been rested from the end of January when the previous tenants moved out until early June when our horses moved in. When our horses did arrive, they grazed one of our new paddocks, allowing the rest of the field to flourish naturally and have most of the growing season ungrazed.

Common spotted orchids

We were amazed to see the diversity of wild flowers and grasses that appeared, and rapidly discovered that we already had exactly what we wanted which is a species rich wildflower meadow.

We consider ourselves to be the guardians of this old meadow, and our rotational grazing plan should be perfect to maintain and even improve it. There are some very species rich areas and some which are much less diverse. Hopefully by managing the grazing we can help the less diverse areas to improve.

There is plenty of plantain, dandelion and clover
In June it became a buttercup meadow. Buttercups can be a problem for horse paddocks, as creeping buttercups thrive in overgrazed wet and poached pastures. In Far Ground we had mainly meadow buttercups that are less invasive, and as other plants appeared we realised that they are in perfect balance with the rest of the plant species
The grass species are draught tolerant low sugar native species, exactly what we want for this pasture.
Horses have evolved to eat a lot of low sugar high fibre forage and the common ryegrass is too rich for them.

In June 2023 these plants were identified: cowslip, common bromerape, yorkshire fog, sheep’s sorrel, yellow rattle, lady bedstraw, yellow trefoil, black medic, bent grass, false oat grass, speedwell, hogweed (small), common spotted orchid, pyramidal orchid, false goatsbeard, hypericum, birds nest orchid, white campion, heal all, bee orchid.

Around the stables area there is borage, a plant loved by bees
Black medic (yellow flower)
Many pyramidal and common spotted orchids
Common spotted orchids
Lady bedstraw with a pyramidal orchid
White campion
Common bromerape
We found just one bee orchid.
And ragwort – I have never seen so much ragwort! ragwort is toxic to horses, it accumulates in their liver over their lifetime and ultimately can kill them. Fortunately horses will not eat fresh growing ragwort, but they will eat it dried as in hay. It is a plant that is not suitable for horse paddocks.

I know that ragwort provides the specialised habitat that some species need, in particular the beautiful cinnabar moth, but it is still a plant that is not welcome in horse paddocks. I reassure myself that ragwort thrives beside many roads and on waste land all over the country, to provide the habitat for these species.Fortunately the really dense ragwort is in just two of our paddocks, and just scattered bits in the majority of the field

So the massive ongoing project of ragwort digging begun. This continued from June 2023, all summer and into the autumn, and in spring 2024.
These bags are just a fraction of the ragwort removed.
We are making a difference to the amount but it will take a few years to fully get on top of it.
Baby Roe deer
I found this little treasure one morning in June 2024 whilst pulling our ragwort in waist high grass. Close by her I also found a bee orchid.
The mother deer leaves her baby hiding in long grass to avoid predators, she was never far away though.
Mummy deer watching me from the next paddock

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