South Petherton flower meadow helps to reduce flooding

On joining South Petherton Parish Council in 2019, local resident and environmental enthusiast Kath Brace was asked to form a tree and wildlife working group with other likeminded residents, and they christened it TWiG.

Their first job was planting hedges on parish land, with great support from Reimagining the Levels (RtL) and the Green Scythe Fair, who both gave grants to get the hedge finished. RtL supplied hedge plants and even a team of helpers to get the last bit of hedge finished in February this year, resulting in 300 metres of mixed hedge.

At the same time, the topic of village flooding popped up at Parish Council (PC) meetings on a fairly regular basis. To address this, the PC commissioned a report from Farming and Wildlife Group (FWAG) Southwest to assess a 12 acre parish owned field, which was contributing to local flooding due to excessive water runoff. FWAG recommended converting the intensively farmed field back to grassland to reduce runoff.

The field in question was rented from the PC by a local farmer who was happy to give up 2 acres adjacent to the village where water runoff was prevalent.

TWiG took charge of transforming one acre into grassland, with the help of the farmer who was very helpful in creating a stale seed bed (cultivating once leaving the annual weeds to grow then cultivating again) and then sowing, the other acre was allocated for new allotments.

The next step was to raise money to convert the acre into a flower meadow. Grants from the Parish Council, Tree Council and former South Somerset Council would make it a reality.

Kath said “We thought long and hard about what seed to buy and decided on a mix of native English perennial fine leaved grasses and a simple set of native perennial wild flowers, all grown in this country. The seed was expensive, but it was top quality. It was sown in September 2022 and grew on well. In 2023 we were advised to cut and remove the growth on the plot 3 times throughout the summer to get rid of annual weeds and encourage the little plants to put down strong roots and bulk up."

"We have been rewarded with an acre of strong plants, mostly ox eye daisies at the moment but there is plenty of red clover and knapweed. We are hoping for some birds foot trefoil and wild carrot. We have been advised that some plants may take a while to get going and the profile of the meadow will change every year. It will be mown once in late August this year with all greenery removed to reduce fertility. If it becomes too fertile then stronger grasses will take over and all our hard work will be lost. With the rain and wind, we have been having lately we may need to mow and remove earlier if the growth has flopped over in which case we would be rewarded with some flowers in October!"

"The run off from the 2 acres of converted land has stopped but the water still runs off the remaining 10 acres as it has nothing to help it be absorbed into the land. In December 2023 some of the allotments were badly flooded and the centre of South Petherton was completely under water for several days. So, the next phase of our story is to convert the rest of the Parish field to a wild flower meadow by 2027!

Watch this space!

It’s been a bit of a journey over the past 5 years but we are all very proud of what we have achieved so far and very grateful to the Parish Council, the former South Somerset District Council and all the village residents for their support.”