Wild flowers in the graveyard

I was visiting my Dad’s graveyard today, and it was great to see good management practices being applied to encourage more biodiversity.

Parts of the graveyard are cut, and other areas are left with longer grass and wildflowers that will soon seed. It’s always a balance to keep visitors happy, but a rotation system is a good way to ensure different areas are re-seeded every year.

One of the more interesting parts are a couple of areas which will hold graves in future years but for now are just allowed to grow with the seed bank already present. It’s very species rich with field scabious, rough hawkbit, bird’s foot treffoil, greater knapweed, black horehound, agrimony, yellow mignonette, field madder, yarrow, lady’s bedstraw and poppies.

It certainly looks like this area is cut once a year, and it is not overgrown with docks and creeping thistle. Of course, it’s not a long term grassland, but it would be good if the seed could be harvested to put in other municipal areas in the town.