Meadows Talk On March 24—

Treasures Return To Meadow Habitats

By Kendra Bobowick

Along the wooded edges of many backyards could be ferns and mosses spread below mountain laurel, hemlock, silky dogwoods, and lowbush blueberries, opening onto swaths of grasses and flowers, black-eyed Susans, coreopsis, goldenrod, native asters, and butterfly weeds, in Dan Holmes’s eyes.

On Saturday, March 24, between 10 am and noon, at Newtown Municipal Center, Mr Holmes of Holmes Fine Gardens will speak at a seminar hosted by Newtown Conservation Commission. The seminar will address the installation and maintenance of meadows for public and private properties.

Mr Holmes and the Conservation Commission are raising a “wonderful topic,” said Land Use Deputy Director Rob Sibley. Referring to smaller areas as micromeadows, he said, “Turn your yard into what could have meadow characteristics — a variety of animals and insects that thrive on Joe-Pye weed, for example.”

In Connecticut’s fragmented forests especially, he said, “meadows are scarce. They are the nesting and breeding areas.” Meadows are where “the bird species like to show off and do all their singing, that’s where the fun happens,” he said. Species that need a meadow’s habitat “are stressed out,” he said, and disappearing.

Conservation

“Meadows provide a unique habitat for many plants, birds and animals,” which is an environment that her commission wants to promote, said Conservation Commission Chairman Mary Gaudet-Wilson said via e-mail. “Landowners should consider whether they might convert some areas which are currently planted and maintained as lawns to meadow habitat,” she added.

Ms Gaudet-Wilson described something similar to Mr Holmes’s vision. “Meadows where native grasses and wild flowers are allowed to grow during the spring and summer months provide the right environment for ground nesting birds such as bobolinks, various species butterflies, bees, and small mammals.”

Reducing the amount of lawn has additional benefits, she said. Lawn care “uses up nonrenewable resources such as fuel and water,” Ms Gaudet Wilson pointed out. Fertilizers and pesticides could also create pollution, so Ms Gaudet Wilson suggests exchanging lawn areas with meadow habitat.

“By replanting areas with native species that can be sustained with little watering and care, the landowner may actually save time and money, and will have created a special habitat which is beneficial to wildlife,” she said.

Mr Holmes said, “It’s important to understand a meadow. It’s habitat, healthy habitat for bird and insect species and other wildlife.”

He also understands that mowing the lawn is almost a reflex for homeowners. “It’s funny, people will say, ‘It doesn’t look like my lawn, unmowed,’ It’s a natural reaction.” Both in backyards and throughout town “everywhere is trimmed and neat.” But a meadow offers a diversity of plants and species, he said. “Diversity of our environment is really what’s lacking, meadows are so rich, yet they rely on the woodlands for shading and moisture, they’re an integral part of the larger landscape.”

He sees meadows as a lawn substitute, and “I think they are more attractive, interesting, and healthy.”

During the upcoming seminar, he hopes to convey the meaning of a meadow, how to cultivate it, and why homeowners should consider it.

Also, a meadow does not necessarily mean a vast open space. “Size is not critical,” he said. Meadow areas can be cultivated in sections of a property, depending on its conditions. “There are wet meadows, dry meadows, shaded meadows, sunny meadows, not just a big space or open field,” he said. “A meadow forces the gardener or the ecologist to think about the landscape in the greater context; it forces us to think in plant communities…a meadow creates plants that go together on their own.”

 The NFA Meadows

The Newtown Forest Association (NFA) has reclaimed and maintains nearly 75 acres of formally fallow or overmowed grasslands that are now productive meadows, said NFA President Bob Eckenrode. Among the larger tracts of meadows maintained by NFA are the Greenleaf, Nettleton and Holcombe Hill Preserves, as well as the Blackman Property along Mt Pleasant Road.

By altering its maintenance schedule, NFA has been able to promote healthy meadow growth. They mow in early spring and very late fall, which allows a mixture of native plants and grasses to grow and mature during the summer and into fall.

The result after several years of managed maintenance? “The remarkable return of some of these song birds, and native plant and insect species once not found there at all,” said Mr Eckenrode, who also mentioned the nesting songbirds, butterflies, grasshoppers, and lightning bugs, which also thrive in meadows

Grassland birds have returned, including bobolinks, Eastern meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, and Savannah sparrows.

“Our properties now burst with native species of plants and insects that were allowed to mature in these fields simply by letting the fields grow,” said Mr Eckenrode. “It was a personal wonder for me to experience first-hand the difference timely mowing made at the Nettleton Preserve and the Greenleaf Preserve. These fields were overmowed in the past and had become monocultures of short manicured grass and not suitable for any of these native species.”

Aside from offering habitat diversity, he noted that meadows, when combined with woody edge shrubs, water, and forest, have a more complete backyard ecosystem. “It’s that simple, but it is important,” he said. “Meadows are an integral part of a bigger piece of the healthy natural resource puzzle of forests and wetlands.”

Naming another notable meadow, although not an NFA property, he mentioned the High Meadow of Fairfield Hills, which “already serves as an important habitat for endangered migrating song birds.

“If mowed late in the year to allow native plants and insects to mature, a more diverse habitat will appear,” said Mr Eckenrode. The “introduction of additional native plants may be all that is necessary to maintain this valuable wildlife and passive recreational habitat.”

Like the Conservation Commission, NFA members “look forward to … joining together to specify, mange and maintain portions of open land as meadow here in Newtown,” said Mr Eckenrode. He reaches out the offer to the town departments and commissions and private landowners.

Mr Sibley also noted that through cooperation with the Newtown Parks & Recreation Department, the town is maintaining Orchard Hill as a meadow habitat, and has begun work on the Pole Bridge Preserve.

For more information, email Mr Holmes at dan@holmesfinegardens.com.