Churchyard regulations, 2020
Preparing the ground for wild flowers.......
We would like to encourage bees and insects in our graveyard and have made a start on establishing a perennial wildflower meadow. We have removed the top soil from an area which is rarely visited, sprinkled it with flower seeds, 'bedded them in' (with lots of tramping backwards and forwards!), and given the area a final watering. The 'mound' has been tricky to mow, but it is highly visible from the path which winds between the graves. We'll need to be patient while we wait for the emergence of the flowers, as this kind of propagation usually takes at least two years to fully develop. In the meantime we'll protect the area from the usual mowing routine, with just an annual cutting back in early autumn. In the first year we'll cut to a height of 4 to 5 inches, and the following years cut it back to about 1 inch.
There are several interesting listed box tombs in our graveyard and we'll try and provide photos and information about them over the coming months. We also look after four war graves.
