Celia Hart's blog about what's going on in and around her studio.
Art, printmaking, inspirations, gardening, vegetables, hens, landscapes, wild flowers, East Anglia, adventure, travel.

Friday 30 June 2017

Meadow appreciation

Did you know that July 1st is National Meadows Day? so this blog post is aptly timed.

For the past 2 years I have designed Christmas cards for the wildflower charity Plantlife, and as a thank you I was offered a tour of one of their nature reserves. The nearest (70 miles away) is Seaton Meadows, and today I went there to meet Plantlife's Nature Reserves Manager Joe Costley.

Seaton Meadows nature reserve is in the small county of Rutland in the East Midlands, the 28 acres of meadows are in the Welland Valley and lie under the longest brick built viaduct in Britain. Architectural and plant heritage in one place. The reserve is dedicated to the memory of Geoff Hamilton who presented Gardeners' World on BBC TV and was on Plantlife's Advisory Council.

Joe explained that just over half the meadow land is flood-meadow and this is where those plants special to the now rare water-meadow habitat can be found ... such as Greater Burnet, Pepper Saxifrage and Meadow Rue.

As we walked round the meadows Joe pointed out that the moisture levels, the areas that have silt deposits from flooding, the hummocks and the dips, each support a slightly different mix of plants. So the meadow isn't a uniform colour and texture, it is a blending of areas different grasses and herbs.

Looking across the meadow at low level you can see the different heights of the plants, the dots of purple Common Knapweed and yellow Meadow Vetchling among the green grass; pale grass seed heads sway above; and even taller, the branching stems of the Greater Burnet with their burgundy bobble-like flower-heads.

As we walked through the dense thatch of grasses and herbs, we could hear the now dry seed-pods of Yellow Rattle. This is the plant that is included in 'meadow' seed mixtures because it is a partial parasite ... its roots attach to the grasses roots and weaken them, so other meadow herbs can flourish.

After my guided tour I decided to stay a while, I'd brought with me a packed lunch, a folding chair and my sketchbook and paints. I selected a pitch on one of the hummocks in the water meadow and settled down to look, listen and sketch.
I began to hear birds singing, a Skylark rose up out of the grasses nearby and started its song directly above me, so loud! then gradually fading as it climbed into the sky.

Sitting on my low seat I could see the movement of dozens of butterflies ... Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Small Tortoiseshells. I spotted a Burnet Moth, its red and iridescent indigo wings were like jewels. The sound of bees buzzing was all around me. Mainly Red-tailed Bumblebees and some Carder Bees.

Drawing the scene meant looking even closer at the colours and textures; the swaying mix of plant shapes; and at the vast man-made viaduct striding across the valley.

So, find a meadow ... it needn't be a special nature reserve or large. Just a wild patch of grasses and flowers. Sit still and let the meadow tell you its story.

Celia
xx


10 comments:

  1. Oh! What a wonderful day out! And I'm pretty sure there'll be a lino cut of that viaduct one day :-)
    Thank you, Celia

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a beautiful place - a lovely way to spend a day :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It sounds a blissful day and how wonderful that it is dedicated to the memory of Geoff Hamilton, who was such a supporter of Plantlife. Sketches are lovely too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lovely post - what an idyllic day out

    ReplyDelete
  5. Celia, having seen your Instagram post, I wanted to find out more about your day in this marvelous meadow. It really must have been bliss.

    Please forgive me if I have mentioned this to you before, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading John Lewis-Stempel's Meadowland, and would recommend it to you, if you've not read it yet. It's magical. xo

    ReplyDelete
  6. That sounds like a lovely thing to do!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Looks stunning and even better when you wave your artistic magic over it all :) Glad you had a good day.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a lovely place - such gorgeous flowers. Although I'm not a painter, I liked your point about how painting makes you stop and really look at what is in front of you. Lovely x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Celia, this was a joy to read.What you saw was a beautiful and rare thing and that viaduct transports it back to a time when it was the norm.There's so much in this post I could talk about : the wonderful Mr Hamilton; the butterflies, the day flying moths and the bees... and the sketches too. What a fantastic thank you for your work. Lucky you!

    ReplyDelete
  10. How lovely!I haven't checked on your blog for a few months - what a lovely surprise to come here at the tail end of October when it is raining cats and dogs here in Ottawa, and find two articles written all about summer and flowers:)

    ReplyDelete

I love reading all the comments (except for spam and advertising which I will delete) and I'll reply here in the comments under each blog post, it may take a few days if I'm busy.
You don't need to have a blog to leave a comment, you can select the name/URL option and fill in just your name instead of a blog link.