Bartholomew Students aid Meadow Restoration in Sustainable Work Experience Week

Today we welcomed a friendly group of year 12 students from Bartholomew School to help the network with our continuing Wildflower Meadow Restoration Project. We started the morning at Eynsham playing fields, scattering fresh seed on the recently mown restoration meadow area towards the fishponds. 

The seeds included yellow rattle, which is a brilliant and essential plant for meadow resotration as it's semi-parasitic, leaching the nutrients from the root systems of grasses which ensures the grasses don't grow too tall and take over the rarer wildflower species.

We then headed down to Long Mead Wildlife Site where we continued the group's fantastic work, potting on our two year old wildflower seedlings so they can spread their roots and thrive before being planted out this Autumn. 

Everyone got stuck in and their hands dirty, braving slugs and bugs to get through more potting on than expecting in record time, it got quite competitive! 

Meanwhile, bird and moth specialist Sally Taylor, along with ecologist and water vole expert Anna Rowlands, engaged students in discussions on the ecological importance of these species and provided demonstrations of their key characteristics.

After a pause for a picnic lunch in the shade with a beautiful meadow view, the students still found the energy to enthusiastically help us winnow our freshly collected seed from the ancient meadow at Long Mead, which will be dried and stored ready for sowing next year.

Separating the yellow rattle seed from the chaff through our custom made buckets! 

Our greatest thanks to the Bartholomew staff and students for an enjoyable and helpful day!