Community unites to nurture floodplain meadow
As the floodwaters recede from Christ Church Meadow, our Head Gardener Steve Howes looks back at where his team left off – reflecting on our latest planting day that brought students, staff and conservation volunteers together to enhance one of the UK’s rarest habitats.
Our 500th Anniversary year ended superbly in the gardens, with an extremely successful day planting in our floodplain meadow, working in partnership with Catriona Bass from Longmead Wildlife Trust.
We were blessed with beautiful weather alongside Catriona’s 20 volunteers, our students from the GCR and JCR, and volunteering members of staff. We planted approximately 30 different variety of wildflowers, some of which were marginal plants that love being in wet marshy soil such as yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia Vulgaris) and marsh-marigold (Caltha Palustris).
All the wildflowers were supplied by Longmead, which is a great way for Christ Church to be able to support Catriona and the fantastic work she is doing restoring floodplain meadows around Oxfordshire.
The event was an excellent opportunity to engage and educate the students and build awareness around the significance of floodplain meadow habitat in the UK – how important they are in capturing carbon emissions and why we need to protect and preserve them. It was also a good time to reflect on how fortunate we are at Christ Church to have our very own floodplain to nurture and protect.
In the spring I am looking forward to seeing how successful our planting was and to share the flowering meadow with the community and members of the public. I will be taking meadow tours throughout the summer – please do get in touch with me or enquire at the Visitor Centre for further details.
We continue to work with Catriona and her volunteers to develop our meadow and look to other areas at Christ Church where we can increase our biodiversity, helping to tackle climate change.
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