National Meadows Day celebrates wildflower grasslands and provides a great opportunity for Cheshire Wildlife Trust to raise awareness of the importance of meadow habitats to wildlife in the region.
The Trust runs its headquarters at Bickley Hall Farm, as an organic wildlife-friendly farm with its own meadows, and also has a dedicated heritage meadow at its reserve near Holmes Chapel, called Swettenham Meadows.
At Bickley Hall Farm, the meadows are cut at the end of July each year, to give late flowering meadow plants a chance to grow, flower and set seed. This provides pollinators with food throughout the spring and summer and gives ground nesting birds the best chance possible of rearing their chicks. A tenth of each meadow is also left uncut to provide a refuge for invertebrates. After cutting, the meadows are grazed by cattle, which helps prevent dominant, competitive plant species taking over.