Wildflower Turf and Green Roofs Blog » Around the Farm

Aerial Photo’s of Ashe Warren Farm

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:51:20 +0000

Last week James Hewetson-Brown (Managing Partner of Coronet Turf) had the thrilling experience of being a passenger in a Cessna airplane out of Popham Airfield, Hampshire. The purpose of this flight was to take up to date aerial photo’s of our wildflower turf production area at Ashe Warren Farm for our website. Just watch the photo’s roll over to see the full 360° view.

It was a fine day, without a cloud in the sky – just perfect. The results are quite stunning as I am sure you will agree and clearly show the wildflower turf beds, lake and production sheds surrounded by beautiful farm land.

Barn Owls and Kestrals

Thu, 19 May 2011 15:42:55 +0000

We were full of anticipation the other day when the Hawk Conservancy arrived to check out the nest boxes on the farm. You will remember last year we were able to proudly announce, like all surrogate parents, the successful hatching of a Barn Owl and what a bruiser he was too.

Now this year, we waited with bated breath as Matt Stevens, Conservation Officer at the Hawk Conservancy, Andover went off the inspect the nest boxes. Imagine our surprise when he came back with more good news than we were expecting.

Not only are there two chicks already hatched and doing really well in the Barn Owl box, but there are four more eggs all ready to hatch. A bumper year.

Background: Barn Owl (Tyto alba) can lay between 4-7 eggs per clutch at 2-3 day intervals. Clutch size and breeding success depends very much on the availability of their main prey species (short-tailed voles and other field rodents). The fact that there are likely to be 6 offspring means, so says Matt, that this is a good year.

However, this was not the only piece of good news that Matt conveyed. On the ledge in front of the Owl box, a Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) has taken up residence. The chick will not win any beauty contests but we are sure his parents think he’s glorious

Then there is the Kestral box. Last year although the Kestral showed interest in the nest box, but Jackdaws wanted to share and she deserted. This year however, is another matter entirely. The beautiful Kestral (Falco tinnunculus) has this time laid 4 glorious eggs which we hope will successfully hatch this year.

Background: Kestrals defend only a small territory, with the home territory often shared with other Kestrals. the area can be between a 1km – 10km radius. Kestrals often don’t secure a mate until their second year even though they are considered mature at a year old. According to the RSPB, “The timing of egg laying is dependent on the weather, but the female normally lays her clutch of 3-6 eggs in late April or early May. She is only able to produce eggs if she can get enough food. In years when vole numbers are low, many Kestrels fail to nest at all.”

We can’t wait for the next visit by Matt and his team to ascertain how many more Barn Owl chicks have hatched and whether the Kestrals have been successful this year. Fingers crossed. We’ll be pleased to keep you updated.

Bye Bye Summer! Hello Autumn!

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:21:23 +0000

When the days start with a floating mist, when spiders webs are coated with dewdrops, and the sun has to be coaxed over the horizon you know that autumn is just arriving. That ‘s when the jumpers, gloves and scarves make an appearance and waterproofs become the order of the day ’cause the fields are cold and wet with dew in the early mornings when walking the dogs and inspecting the fields. We just love it – it’s a new chapter!

As September draws to a close and the days start to shorten (not that we want winter any sooner than usual), we look back at the glorious hot summer we have had here at the farm and reflect on the many events that have happened over the season. From Barn Owls to Flower Shows, time-lapse videos to our very first newsletter, we’ve reported it all to you in our weekly blogs.

Being a working farm and after a warm dry summer we are patting ourselves on the back for getting our harvest in early, which means we have now also finished sowing the winter wheat. There’s still next years supply of wildflower meadow, wildflower roof and lawn turf to sow, which incidentally is now almost complete, so all we need now to get everything off to a really good start is a mild autumn and lots of gentle rain – rather like yesterday actually. Do you reckon that if we put our order in now with the weather man we’ll be get what we need? Highly unlikely I know, but we all like to dream don’t we?

Talking about yesterdays rain, we were delighted to see a mixed flock of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Chaffinches all descend upon our trial wildflower meadow. As the rain progressed the Titmice relocated to the pebble-dash walls of the farm buildings feeding off insects which had flown out of the newly cut meadow – they seemed to be having a veritable feast. The Chaffinches on the other hand were harvesting the spilled seeds from the grasses and wildflowers. Funny how different birds visit this hidden courtyard. On balmy days it was mostly Swallows and House Martins catching airborne insects for their young.

You really know that summer is over when our summer visitors begin to depart. We can’t even remember them lining up along the telegraph wires this year, so abrupt has been their migration. Do they know something we don’t perhaps??!

We Have Barn Owls in our Barn!

Claire — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:05:39 +0000

Barn Owls (Tyto alba) are a species of conservation concern in the UK, so being given the chance to change their fortunes albeit very slightly and locally was not an opportunity we were prepared to pass up.

Some while ago the nice people from The Hawk Conservancy popped over to the farm to install a nest box in one of our high barns. The goal was to encourage the Barn Owls that had been seen flying around the farm, to rear young in a place where they would be relatively safe and there was clearly a guaranteed food source.

Barn Owls are low flying predators and prefer open farmland with abundant hedgerows, edge of woodland with field margins left alongside hedgerows. They feed on small mammals such as short-tailed voles, mice, shrews and small rats – just what you would expect to find scurrying around a farm with open tracts of rough un-grazed grassland and acres of wildflower meadow turf.

A few weeks ago, and with great anticipation on our part, The Hawk Conservancy returned to see whether Mr & Mrs Barn Owl had decided it was a Des. Res. and had set up house in there. To our great delight they had done more than that, they had laid a couple of eggs.

So imagine our enchantment today when Sam Hunt of the Hawk Conservancy returned to check their progress. One charming 3 week old chick with the fattest tummy, a clear sign of plentiful food, was proudly presented ready for ringing. Sam told us the chick was a little young to see whether it was a boy or girl but the fact that it was clearly well fed and healthy was all we really cared about.

Sam weighed this fluffy specimen and we were told it was the same weight as its mother, around 30 grams and heavier than its father. Wow, what a bruiser!

We have a nifty little fact for you: Did you know that Barn Owls mate for life? Well they do, which means that next year, because Mrs Barn Owl quite liked our next box she will probably use it again. How cool would that be!

We also thought you might like to see this bruiser of a barn owl baby, so we took a picture. Ahhhh!

Wildflower Meadow Timelapse Photography

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:11:10 +0000

Here is a whizzy little application we have been trialing to enable our fellow bloggers to see how spectacular our wildflower meadow turf looks when fully grown. It is an interesting little project that I wanted to share with you all. We decided to use a spare bit of land just outside the office which was very chalky and bare and got a little bit creative using time lapse photography created by Stephen Hill. In order to see this at its best, we recommend you click here .

Wild Flower Turf – From rolls to meadow in 9 Weeks from James Hewetson-Brown on Vimeo.

Notice how the Pink Campions displayed early, shortly followed by Oxeye Daisies and Bladder Campions. It’s all about progression, balance and competition between the various grass and flower species. The turf looks quite alarmingly sparse when first laid but as you can see after a couple of weeks it really begins to grow and thicken up. After being quite pink for a couple of weeks, it now displays as an overall white cloud. We can’t wait to see what flowers next!

Despite the cold, the turf is rolling out

wildflower — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:28:24 +0000

Windsor Great Park is taking its last delivery of the year with 400/m² leaving the farm tomorrow morning. Despite the weather it is still a good time of year to lay the turf as it will not need to be watered while it establishes. Once the turf’s roots are established a wild flower meadow is drought tolerant and very hardy. Establishing the turf before the spring will ensure it is flowering towards the end of April. The turf is fine in frosty conditions, both here on the farm or once it is laid on site. The main problem is lifting frozen turf as once frozen it is similar to lifting stiff cardboard – we can not roll it up! On most days it has thawed by the afternoon and is lifted then.

Green Roof Update

wildflower — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:22:20 +0000

The stable green roof has been coming on so quickly in the last few months so I thought I should climb up on the roof to take some pictures. It was teeming with insect life! I am absolutely delighted with how this has turned into a genuine wildflower meadow. We have had to water the roof because of the recent dry weather but only about once a week.

Green Roof in Summer09. Stables.

Watering boom in action

wildflower — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:34:17 +0000

Well spotted if you noticed that this isn’t actually Wildflower Turf being watered. I had an order for Lawn Turf and set it up under the watering boom. Notice that the nozzles can be controlled independently – rows 5 and 7 are set not to deliver water as there is no turf underneath them!

Click here to view the embedded video.