Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The New River Path is doing just fine
I held off from commenting on this thread until I had visited the New River path myself and fortunately, this week, I had a reason to pootle along this path one morning with plenty of time on my hands.
I read the thread with interest and my first question was
What do you mean by a wildflower meadow?
My guess (and I apologise in advance if I’m wrong in which case the next couple of paragraphs aren’t for you so skip ahead!) is that most people envisage a poppy/corncockle/cornflower heavy field. A quick google throws up dozens of images like that. Articles that warn of the loss of meadows often feature pictures of acres of poppies and cornflowers, even by organisations that should know better.
This type of field is not a meadow in the true sense of the word. It is rather a planting of cornfield annuals. They are beautiful, colourful and aesthetically pleasing. They do provide food for general pollinators and other wildlife, but there’s a catch. Unless the ground is cultivated and dug over every year, the meadow will flower once and then it will disappear. This is why they are part of the English cultivated countryside, but not suitable for most urban sites.
These fields also create an unrealistic expectation of what a wildflower is. That clover in your lawn is every bit (if not more so) valuable to wildlife as a corn marigold. Rather than catering to this expectation of riots of colour, we need to train ourselves to look much more closely at what’s under our feet and appreciate the job it’s doing despite our best efforts to eradicate it.
Here is the definition of a true meadow via Plantlife:
“A true ‘meadow’ is an area of grass maintained by an annual hay cut. It’s made up of perennial plants – species that grow and flower each year, re-appearing from their underground roots each spring. It includes meadow flowers like:
- grasses, such as Crested Dog’s-tail, Sweet Vernal Grass and Yorkshire Fog
- types of daisy, including Greater Knapweed, Oxeye Daisy and Cat's-ear
- types of pea and vetch, like Red Clover, Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Bush Vetch and Sainfoin
- many others, such as Buttercups, Meadow Crane's-bill, Lady’s Bedstraw, Cowslips and Wild Carrot.”
And I would argue that what exists along the New River path already fulfils this criteria.
Not everything listed above is there but then it doesn’t have to be. A meadow is a grassy lawn with perennials that you mow late summer, remove the hay and leave.
A pictorial meadow requires the ground to be prepared with sand, risking grubbing up an actual meadow to create something that will not last and in which nothing useful grows after without yearly digging. True meadows take a long time to get going but need a lot less work. They spend part of the year looking bare but the roots below the ground will soon see the return of the flowers in Spring and Summer.
So I went down the New River Path and I found a riot of plant biodiversity,
and the most amazing “green wall”
so I would argue that, apart from litter picking from time to time and the annual mow,
this part of the neighbourhood is doing just fine.
Tags for Forum Posts: biodiversity, local nature news, nature notes, new river path, wildflower meadows
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Arkady on
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There's quite a bit of truth to what you say here. I do agree we shouldn't be trying to establish a cornflower field (though a few patches of that might be nice here and there). The focus should be on perennials over annuals.
However, except in the unmowable fringes, the New River banks aren't really a wildflower meadow. It's too dominated by grass, especially lawn grasses, partly due to the long-term regularity and closeness of the mowing. Relatively few flowering plants per square metre. A better mowing regime would help, but for the full range of biodiversity it would help kick-start things to sow a proper native wildflower meadow mix - which would only need to be done once. You'd need to dig it over before sowing that first year to create a tithe, but could stay well away from the riverbank and fringes where there is already a lot of good diversity. After that it should be OK on its own - especially if you seed lots of vetches to suppress the grasses!
Downhills Park has a decent example of what one should look like.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Yes, I've also been over to Downhills this week and also Chestnuts and seen their wildflower work
I don't think Thames Water would go for the Downhills one to be honest, amazing though it is and full of insect life, I've never found them keen on this sort of thing.
but the Chestnuts model might be a go as it only takes a small part of the grass to start but has gradually crept out without becoming too tall
As we can't walk on the far side of the river it's difficult to know what is growing over there. Shorter grass is better for nectar rich clovers and daisies and important for some insect species.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for the reassurance.
For the record, I was thinking primarily about the east bank, the bit we can't get to. I wrote about "a wildflower / biodiversity corridor". So, no, my thoughts weren't focussed on a pretty meadow of flowers.
Thames Water currently manage the space with zero consideration for wildlife and biodiversity, as far as I know. It may be that an approach of woeful neglect such as this is all that's needed. But, in my ignorance, I assumed that the careful cultivation of nature, as practised by the various wildlife groups around London, has more value than just leaving things be.
Given that the land is alongside our drinking water supply, I suppose one thing that we can assume is that few chemicals are in use on it.
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As we're learning through places like Knepp, often just leaving things be is the best approach - to an extent. In the absence of grazing animals you need to mow. I suppose we could have a whip-around for a few cows. Similarly where there isn't a good seed stock it helps to introduce some seed - even at Knepp they did this in many places and the difference between the seeded and non-seeded areas is notable, particularly in terms of diversity.
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Some time back I attended a meeting where Thames Water and other stakeholders were present which was more to do with litter but the subject of wildflower meadows came up and it became clear that Thames were not at all interested, but neither was The Wildlfe Trust at Woodberry (probably figured they have enough on their plate managing the reservoir) so the solution would probably be to try a form a group to lobby and plan for it. The umbrella group of the The New River Action Group requires you to form a "branch" and federate although I'm not clear if they are very active these days and the last time I looked at this there simply wasn't enough interest in a Harringay branch.
I appreciate that you and Arkady were envisioning true meadows and as I said I realised that most people interacting with the thread probably also understood this but I thought that its important to both define those terms and realise that there is already a lot going on down that stretch.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Woolley on
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Hi all,
I was really pleased to come across this thread (and the previous thread that Hugh started back in July) and wanted to add some comments. I’ll pick up where Liz left off.
Liz, I agree that some kind of Lobby Group might be the best approach. Looking at the New River Action Group website, I note that Muswell Hill & Hornsey Friends of the Earth is a member. Hugh’s original post concerned the stretch of New River behind Wightman Road, i.e. the section that essentially starts ‘below’ Hornsey train station. So perhaps the Hornsey FoE group might be willing to champion this?
Another group we could talk with is the charity Thames21. This sort of thing is exactly what they do. I’ve worked with them before and they’re really good. From their website:
“We help communities reclaim their rivers through rewilding projects which improve river banks access, increase biodiversity and beautify waterways. We help clean rivers and reduce urban flooding by creating rainscapes and reedbeds. And we wouldn’t be Thames21 if we didn’t work alongside local communities to organise regular clean-ups where we transform a river in just a few hours.”
I am certainly no expect on wildflowers, meadows, etc - so it’s been very informative to read this thread, thank you. I’m constantly surprised by the great array of knowledge you can find on Harringay Online! There are some very wise people here :)
But for what it’s worth, I certainly think that the stretch of the new river in question could be made both more attractive and more wildlife/biodiversity -friendly.
As it happens, the organisation I work for (Semble) runs a campaign called Backyard Nature - with the aim of getting children outdoors and protecting nature. Which gave me one idea: if this gets off the ground, could we involve one of more of the local Harringay primary schools? I really think it would be a great project for kids.
Right, I realise this has become a very long post. Sorry! But be great to hear some thoughts. I really think we should try to make this happen
Dan
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