Restoring nature can be a long-term job but at Dropping Well Farm the landscape is gradually starting to look more like heathland. The varied cutting and grazing regime that we're doing is creating a varied grass structure. In areas that we've sown with seed, wildflowers are provding nectar for pollinating insects. There are also naturalised wildflowers and these include species that are found on the heath and the disturbed soils of the Sandlands.
As you'll have read in previous blogs, we've lost so much of our heathland in Worcestershire and across the UK. Much of the landscape that surrounds Dropping Well Farm and The Devil's Spittleful is now devoid of the former heathland plants that were once so common. 80 years of modern farming and more recent housing developments limit where wildlife survives. Even features that seem relatively insignificant have an impact; a railway line separates Dropping Well from the Spittleful is a physical barrier that slows down colonisation of plants, for example, and the prevailing wind also slows down the spread of seed.
Nature takes time to respond so we try it a boost where we can. We've been collecting heather seed and, perhaps more importantly, the heather leaf litter from underneath the plants on The Devil's Spittleful. This leaf litter contains all manner of seed as well as sandy soil that will be full of fungi and micorrhiza. We then spread this mixture onto prepared areas of Dropping Well Farm to help speed up colonisation.
