Our Living Churchyard

I was delighted to see the keen interest the school took in our churchyard when we had our first day of filming last month. The wettest March and the coldest spring for many years meant that there weren’t many plants in bloom: but the leaves and the buds that were there showed the wide variety of plants that now call this meadow home.

The class were given the task of drawing some of the plants they saw and learning their names. It was exciting to see the enthusiasm with which they tackled this: some brilliant drawings of the leaves and a real curiosity to know what they are and how they will grow over the summer. What a credit they are to Fletching! Many naturalists and enthusiasts with whom I have spoken say that their interest in nature began with an introduction in childhood. I hope that the seeds of interest which were sown that day will similarly lead, as they grow up, to an awareness of, and a care for, the many and varied forms that nature takes.

But what a difference a few days of sunshine make. At the time of filming, the only flowers in bloom were Dandelions – rather sodden by the rain – and Ground-ivy, whose small, shy, deep bluey-purple blooms are easy to miss as they lie low in the sward. Suddenly, we
now have a riot of colour. The Dandelions are
joined by the bright yellow of Creeping
Buttercup. One area is lit up with the sky
blue of Germander Speedwell. Red
Clover, Common Sorrel and Salad Burnet
add shades of red.

And the insects! The ground is abuzz
with bees on the flowers – honeybees,
bumblebees and different solitary bees such as the Orange-legged Furrow Bee, hoverflies including the Three-tufted Sedgesitter, and many others. You have to look closely to see that they are all different. Flies sit on the gravestones in the sun, and two Small White butterflies fly rapidly across the meadow. Spiders dart about in the sward. The anthills show signs of growth, with bare soil being exposed on top, which in turn will provide a fine tilth in which new plants will grow without competition from grasses. Not that I’m ‘grassist’ – very few of our grasses can exceed the beauty of the drooping spikelets of Barren Brome.

And this is just the beginning. We have the promise of summer still to come, with all the array of beauty it will bring in its wake.

Ground ivy, deep bluey-purple blooms