We are holding our first Orchid Fortnight shortly, offering you the chance to stay while our wild flowers are at their best. Up to 1500 flowering heads of heath spotted orchid are expected to be in flower, along with smaller numbers of lesser butterfly orchid. The fortnight runs from Saturday 29 June to Sunday 14 July 2024 and accommodation is available in Tawny Cottage, Red Kite Yurt and Goldfinch Glampavan.
Orchid Meadows is a 25-acre small-holding close to Cors Caron National Nature Reserve and in many ways mirrors that environment. There are flower-rich hay meadows, an area of wetland with rare bog plants, a pond teeming with damsel flies and a newly planted wood of native broad-leaved trees. The site is managed in line with direct advice and input from the South and West Wales Wildlife Trust.
Whilst our orchids are not listed as scarce, no orchids can be described as common anymore due to modern methods of land management. We are doing our best to maximise the populations of these and other wild flowers on our land. Increasing wild flower populations will have a knock-on effect on numbers of insects and farmland birds.
The meadows are managed traditionally with no artificial fertilisers or pesticides. They are cut for hay in late August after most wild plants have flowered and set seed. The hay is used at a nearby horse training centre for feed and bedding. Orchids generally spread very slowly underground naturally but to help the process, seed is collected from the fields before cutting and scattered and trodden in the following spring.
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