Habitat work at Greenfield

I had a day out in the Chilterns on Friday and did some modest work on the two butterfly orchid enclosures at Greenfield.  The first leaves of the orchids were just visible, poking through leaf litter, and reaching around 3cm. 

Plant #85

Plant #203

Plant #100

       

Plant #77

Plant #209

Of the five plants illustrated, chosen at random, only one flowered last year (plant #100).  It might not repeat flower because it was not a particularly robust plant.  By contrast plant #85 did not flower but should do this year - its leaves were broad in 2018, a good indicator of what might transpire in the year following.  Plant #77 had 2 leaves last year, and although plant #203 had only one leaf then, it is obvious that it will have 2 leaves this year.  Plant #209 showed up early in 2018 but had disappeared by June when the full count was made.   It looks a little feeble.

The northern enclosure in 2018 had a thick sward of Dog's mercury which almost overwhelms the orchids.   It seems to be getting more aggressive, perhaps because more light is getting in with the ash trees suffering from ash die back. The problem it creates is that it smothers orchid leaves post-flowering, and chokes out light reaching them thus hampering the development of next year's tuber To check it, I strimmed the emerging plants and hand pulled bits that I missed.  This approach works on bracken; time will tell if I will have had any impact on Dog's mercury.

Before

After

Last year we had an increasing number of plants spreading outwards from the enclosures.  To encourage this spread I put a brush cutter over these areas.