GROWING THE LAWN

Apart from a hedge alongside the track down to the house, the rest of the habitat in our garden is lawn. Or rather, it’s something that could easily become lawn. When we first viewed the property to see if we might rent it from a local dairy farmer, the garden had been neglected for months.

I soon got into the familiar mowing routine, more through force of habit than from any desire to live with a perfect lawn. Like many people, I find mowing grass strangely therapeutic, the effect perhaps enhanced because it’s a weekly ritual. We often crave peace and quiet when outdoors, so standing behind a badly tuned, raucous petrol engine might not seem a promising way to pass the time. But the brain soon adapts to the noise, and by blocking out other sounds and distractions, the persistent low drone of the engine opens up space to think. Ironically enough, that’s when I decided that endless mowing was not the best way forward. An experiment, and a nod towards the new vogue for rewilding, was surely a better option.

The new regime came about partly through laziness, but mostly reflected a genuine desire to encourage more wildlife into the garden.

To be honest we didn’t get quite what we were hoping for. The ill-defined picture in my head was ‘wildflower meadow’ - and there were a few patches where a meadow-like scene emerged in early summer. We had clumps of Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Marsh Thistles, Cow Parsley, Hogweed, and a few Cuckooflowers in the spring in the damper corners. But mostly it was the aggressive and dominant species that took advantage of their new freedom. Dense tussocks of Cock’s-foot and other grasses appeared, together with even thicker clumps of Soft Rush. Where there was some bare ground, and I’d hoped wild flowers might get their chance, we were rewarded instead with docks, thistles and impenetrable patches of nettles. Of course, these are wild flowers, I told myself repeatedly, just not the ones we had anticipated.

The main problem we faced was one that now affects much of our countryside. It was all down to high nutrient levels in the soil. Nutrients are all-pervasive in modern Britain. They come from slurry added to the fields, from artificial fertiliser and also from the air itself as a result of pollution from farming, industry and road traffic. Despite having mown the grass dozens of times and removed the cuttings (to reduce nutrients), the richness in the soil was still very much there. As can be seen along our local road verges and woodland edges, high nutrient levels favour competitive, fast-growing species that quickly swamp the smaller, less vigorous plants, robbing them of space and light. The result is an abundance of tall grasses, with perhaps some Cow Parsley, Cleavers, Hedge Mustard and Common Nettles, but not much variation, and little chance for the many low, or slow, plants trying to find a way in.

We struggled with the appearance of what we’d created. As a compromise, I decided to mow some winding and - as I imagined them - aesthetically pleasing strips through the longer grass.

The newly ‘rewilded’ garden may not have worked quite as intended, but already it supported far more plant diversity than a

well-managed lawn. We are lucky to have plenty of trees in the area, with an abundance of small woods and hedge-lines. But most of the local fields are intensively managed and support few plants other than the grass itself, perhaps a few rushes and maybe a bit of clover. They are either heavily grazed, resulting in a very short sward and little structure, or regularly cut close to ground level in the summer for silage, sometimes two or three times a year.

Our garden, with its mix of species and varied structure, now stood out from the surrounding fields. We noticed the difference, and it soon became apparent that the local wildlife had spotted it too. The garden was suddenly alive with small mammals. Numerous holes in the thatch of dead grass showed that Field Voles had colonised, and occasionally we’d see one dart for cover as we walked by, dissolving into a tussock and out of harm’s way. With the voles came the vole predators - and they finally vanquished any outstanding concerns we may have felt.

I’d already caught sight of a Barn Owl a few times from the window, usually late in the day, beating back and forth over the nearby fields as the light faded. Now when I see one, the routine is markedly different.

We miss the majority of Barn Owl visits. Thiey hunt close to the house mostly after dark, with no more than an occasional eerie screech, heard through a cracked window, to give the game away. But Field Voles get no respite; they risk attack from the air twenty-four hours a day. The day shift is taken up by the Kestrel. This is a scarce bird in the area. I see perhaps one a week on average when out walking, and they are far outnumbered by the local Buzzards. And yet our tiny patch of land now regularly attracts one. It uses the fenceposts and especially the electricity wires as hunting perches - a helpful way to conserve energy in comparison to hovering. Again, we have a ringside view. I watch transfixed as the Kestrel stares down from its perch, head tilting as its interest is piqued. Often, when it spots something, it drops down in stages, with bouts of hovering allowing it to track the prey as it moves stealthily towards it.

We see other vole predators far less often, but they appear now and then to brighten the day. A Fox wanders through the fence every so often in winter, when times are hard and it can’t resist the lure of rodents (or chickens) even in daylight. There is the occasional Weasel and Stoat, and once a hooting Tawny Owl gave away its presence on the wires above the lawn; there was still just enough light to make out its plump silhouette. These predators, especially those that hunt by sight rather than sound, must benefit from the short pathways we’ve cut through the longer vegetation.

Birds too have benefited from the changes, and this has led us to rethink our attitude towards the dominant plants that we so often deem to be ‘weeds’. From late summer through into the winter, the garden in full of seeds. The voles and other small mammals no doubt take advantage, but so too do seed-eating birds. Goldfinches were the first to arrive in pairs and small flocks. On the mown strips they home in on quick­growing dandelions, while in the taller vegetation they head for the thistles. Goldfinches work methodically, but speed is of the essence; they feed on such tiny seeds that many are needed to constitute a decent meal. White fluff drifts away on the breeze, now detached from the seed it is supposed to be dispersing.

Other birds have been more unexpected. The grasses and other plants add so much structure that even birds associated with woodland and hedgerow have become regular visitors. Redpolls occasionally move through the vegetation in autumn. And Bullfinches visit in winter in small, mixed-sex groups, favouring the taller dock and sorrel stems. They bring welcome colour to a drab winter scene, and showcase a contrasting approach to the Goldfinches and Redpolls. A Bullfinch’s beak is short and rounded, allowing it to deal with larger buds and fruits rather than delicately picking out small seeds individually. As they shuffle up towards the top of a stem the weight is sometimes too much for the plant, causing the seedhead to arc slowly down to the ground. The birds are clearly used to this happening; they cling on for the ride, casually continuing to feed.

We often associate the common tits with bird feeders but, of course, they spend much of their time foraging naturally.

I derive far more pleasure from watching birds feed naturally, rather than consuming the food we put out for them. I think this is because it offers added points of connection to their lives in the wild. A Bullfinch taking foreign-grown sunflower seeds from the bird table is one thing. But the same bird seeking out dock seeds in a tangle of vegetation reveals something about its natural behaviour, what it typically eats and where in the countryside you might expect to find it. It’s a little piece of information that helps build a picture of what makes a Bullfinch the bird it is. Our local flock of Long-tailed Tits offers an even greater contrast, either massing together to frenetically peck chunks from factory-made fat balls, or fanning out across the garden, clambering among the stalks, investi­gating tiny, barely accessible nooks and crannies within the foliage.

Like the voles, small birds attract their own range of predators. They keep a cautious eye on the Kestrel, wary of its ability to take birds opportunistically in order to supplement its usual diet. But the real panic is reserved for the Sparrowhawk. Its visits are infrequent and apparently random but vigilance must be maintained at all times. Just one lapse at any time through the long winter months might be one too many, as another life is reduced to a damp circle of feathers on the ground.

Having seen how the wildlife responded to our efforts, there was no going back. But after a year or so of not mowing, a problem started to emerge. The first clue was the regular visits by Jays in the autumn. In they came on rounded, floppy wings, grating the air with their calls, crops bulging noticeably. When they departed a few minutes later they were lighter on their wings, their crops were empty, and the beginnings of a different type of crop had been pushed into our soil. Oaks from the nearby woodlands were making their move. The following spring, acorns not retrieved by the Jays sent up their stiff shoots through the grass. Out in the fields they would quickly succumb to grazing animals, either livestock or deer. But inside our garden fence they were protected.

It wasn’t just oaks that were invading. Brambles were beginning to encroach from the hedge through suckers, and were also appearing in the middle of the garden, presumably sown in the droppings of birds. Blackthorn and Hawthorn too were gaining traction through a mix of suckers and berries deposited by birds. Willows needed neither birds nor suckers, the fluffy seeds drifting in on the breeze from the hedges all around. Without action the garden would soon have become scrub rather than meadow.

Interesting though the experiment might have been, our tenancy agreement seemed to preclude turning the garden into a small forest. Without intervention, I anticipated more than raised eyebrows on the next visit from our landlord. The vegetation was now well beyond the capabilities of my lawnmower, so a more old-fashioned approach was called for. I invested in a scythe, a long, two-handled version with a curved blade at the end for sweeping across, parallel to the ground.

Scything worked well enough, enabling me to deal with the tree seedlings, as well as to remove some of the denser, more dominant clumps of grass and rush, in the hope of encouraging more variety. Voles occasionally darted away as I worked, though they had a high chance of surviving the encounter, unlike the case with mechanical cutting. I also uncovered a few Toads when I inadvertently strayed too close to the ground with the blade. The tussocks made perfect damp, sheltered places for them to hide out during the day, and I wondered if they would hibernate there. Once I’d got into a routine, the work was every bit as therapeutic as mowing, if rather more tiring. And the accompa­niment was natural birdsong rather than the artificial drone of an engine.

As with any habitat management, there have been losers as well as winners. In our first winter here, before the lawn exper­iments, the Redwings and Fieldfares often spilled over into the garden from the adjacent fields, foraging for earthworms. Starlings, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Mistle Thrushes were sometimes with them. Meadow Pipits moved back and forth between the wires and the lawn, and that April we had our one and only garden Wheatear, pausing on migration to take advantage of the bare ground where the farmer’s flail had scraped away the vegetation.

Now, birds that need access to the ground to forage have less habitat to work with, and have become less common or no longer visit. We are seeing in miniature the dilemma faced by conser­vation managers across the country. All decisions come with consequences; gains for some species are almost always at the expense of losses for others. Overall though, we’re very happy with the results we’ve seen. And even the farmer seems to be gradually coming around. We’ve approached the subject tangen­tially, as is the British way, edging around it by talking about the wildlife we see. He seems genuinely impressed by our tales of Foxes, Barn Owls, Kestrels and Bullfinches feeding close to the house and enriching our lives as we pause to watch them from within.