In November 2022 we finally finished raking the Cowbar Lane bund free of the arisings from the council’s second September annual mow. We have spent months removing some of the bull thistles along the bund, preparing a section of grassland for a coastal wildflower sowing experiment and gathering and spreading some of this year’s Cowbar wildflowers on bund and verges, as well as adding some fresh 2022 yellow rattle seeds.
The map and key below show roughly where the different activities have taken place. We are hoping that a lot of wild plants will have self-seeded on the bund during the year anyway. It will be interesting to see if, in 2023, plant species come through in different proportions to last spring when the bund was only 4 months old.
In spring 2023 we will choose some patches to prepare and sow with borage seeds kindly donated by a neighbour from his garden in Staithes village.
KEY:
1 GRASSLAND Patches raked, strimmed and sown with yellow rattle – Winter 2021/22
2 SOUTH VERGE EAST Yellow rattle sown November 2022
3 SOUTH VERGE WEST Cowbar meadow vertch and birdsfoot trefoil seeds collected and sown – Autumn 2022
4 SOUTH VERGE WEST Cowbar meadow vetch and birdsfoot trefoil seeds collected and mixed with purchased yellow rattle seed – sown November 2022
5 BUND ALONG NORTH VERGE Built January 202
Commercial wildflower mix sown, charlock pulled – Spring 2022
Bull thistles pulled, mix of seeds from Cowbar collected and scattered (vetch, trefoil, daisy, black medick, yellow rattle) – Autumn 2022
Entire bund mown, 4/5 length starting from car park had arisings raked and removed – Sept/ Oct 2022
6 WILDFLOWER EXPERIMENTAL PATCH using Coastal Wildflower seeds supplied by the council
Thistles pulled from whole area – autumn 2022
a) Very thorough raking and removal of dead grass
b) Semi- raked, not as deeply as a)
c) No raking
d) Bare earth from bund building
Coastal Wildflower mix and Cowbar seeds scattered on all sections – Autumn 2022
7 SOUTH VERGE WEST Seeds collected from Cowbar (vetch, daisy, black medick, yellow rattle) and commercial yellow rattle seeds scattered on verge November 2022