It’s August and I’m flat out, gardening with every spare minute I have whilst working full time. Despite the current drought the churchyard is full of life, albeit with my assistance. I looked back at my last post at the end of March before writing this and was taken aback at how far the new flower bed and the edible bed have come in the last few months, it happens so gradually when you’re in the thick of it.

The edible bed

The edible bed has come on leaps and bounds, and has reached the stage where I can start giving away food to our local food bank, which was one of my original goals. I don’t think I’ll hit full swing with that until next year, but I had to call them in early when all of the swiss chard seedlings I planted (allotment leftovers) grew into the largest and most lush batch of chard I’ve ever grown; I was expecting most of them to keel over in a heatwave.

My hope for this bed was always for it to be a polyculture jungle, I look at this madness and feel deeply satisfied with my work - although I’m not sure I can say everyone feels the same way as me! It’s currently home to a group of song thrush and blackbird fledglings (they mostly shelter in the pumpkin patch) and supported juvenile robins as they found their way in the world (one quickly noticed that I’m the source of mealworms and has joined Hyzenthlay the blackbird in following me everywhere), well as innumerable bees, hover flies, butterflies and moths. And of course, it’s producing food for human beings as well - at the moment we have tomatoes, lettuce, various perennial kales, herbs, chard, raspberries, and more that I’m probably forgetting.

My pride and joy at the moment is my pumpkin patch, my hubris over the size of the pumpkins is getting out of control and I do fear that they might get divinely struck down to instil some humility in me. We’ve never had much luck with them at the allotment, but a year of digging rocks and tarmac out of this bed and repeatedly mulching it appears to have created soil that is perfect for them (I’m sure the hundreds of years of burials probably helps too).

I fortunately have a large cupboard in my entrance hall that’s perfect for storing vegetables, so as they ripen I’m taking the gourd hoard home to store there and will bring them back up to the church for the harvest festival (which I think is in September), after which they’ll be given to food banks.

I don’t buy in any fertilisers for my plants, I just give them banana and comfrey feeds on a rotation (where I put a few banana skins or a bunch of comfrey in a jar of water for about a week) and they are heavily mulched with cut grass, which seems to be working so far.

Despite all the progress this summer, just under half of the bed is still not planted. I decided to focus on the section I could plant into this summer and get that exactly where it needed to be, and let the far end have a rest. It’s had the rocks dug out of it and is currently under weed cover, so as we go into autumn I’ll go in and get it weeded and mulched. This end is actually where I originally envisioned the pumpkin patch as they’ll have more room to vine, I’ll definitely be moving them down there next year as I’m currently fighting for my life to stop them escaping the part of the bed they’re in and running amok amongst the graves.

New flower bed

In my March update I had just finished digging this bed over and putting a quick mulch on it. Since then I’ve managed to get it all planted while purchasing very few plants (my only big expenditure was a DA Queen of Sweden rose that I couldn’t resist). all of the verbena and rose campion were kindly gifted as seedlings by my mum’s colleague, and several Japanese anemones from the site of an old barn down the road. I always used to admire the anemones when I passed by the barn and assumed it would be converted into a single dwelling once sold. Unfortunately it was instead demolished, and several new builds will be going up soon. Watching everything being torn out and run over by construction vehicles was a bit too much for me to bear so I asked the site manager if I could dig up the anemones. He made the mistake of telling me I could take whatever I wanted, so as well the anemones we also have rescued garden peonies and a flowering currant bush in this bed now.

This year was also my first foray into growing dahlias as my interest in cut flowers grew. I only purchased a handful in the sales and took cuttings from all of them to increase numbers and make enough for me to put some at the allotment too. It’s been a learning curve when it comes to cutting them in order to produce longer stems, I’m normally the kind of gardener that can’t cope with cutting any flowers but I’ve left that behind now and increasingly aggressive cutting has started to produce some lovely stems. I find they seem to thrive on my neglect (my preferred watering strategy is to water them deeply then ignore them for a while).

I had to overcome the same tendency with the sweet peas. I grew them from seed (mostly from Alma Proust but there were a handful of random garden centre finds) and only used scented varieties. Despite the constant heatwaves they hung on to a decent stem length until I decided to let them go to seed a couple of weeks ago. All of the feverfew is also from seed, I somehow ended up with the Tetra White variety as well as the standard version despite only buying one pack of seeds, but they’re both beautiful.

I had an ulterior motive when deciding what to plant in this bed, which was to produce as many flowers suitable for cutting as possible, hence the dahlias, sweet peas, feverfew, etc. The roses (particularly Queen of Sweden, due to her upright growth habit and almost thornless stems) are also types suited to cutting, but, like peonies, they’ll need time to settle in before they can be harvested from.

I had hoped that we could sell excess flowers to raise funds but the idea went down like a lead balloon, so instead I’ve been practicing how to make bouquets and giving them away. I’ve never done any kind of flower arranging before and I’m enjoying it, much of my actual job is about colour and composition so I’m hoping the skills are somewhat transferrable. I also use some plants from the car park bed and the edible bed to bulk up bouquets (my current favourite filler is Moroccan mint).

Speaking of the car park bed

This bed is much more subdued, I loved it in spring but the transition to summer highlighted the issues I have with it so I’ve been chopping and dropping anything that’s going over and planning how to tackle it next year. My main issue is that it’s on a slight slope towards the wall, so when I try to mulch it with my usual cut grass it just slides off when it rains, the water also runs down it eroding soil and making it hard to water the plants near the base deeply. My solution to this would be to edge it all with a woven willow border around 8 inches high so it can retain mulch and finally start building up the soil level. The roadblock I’ve hit though is that that much willow isn’t cheap, I’ve been asking around to see if anyone grows it and would be willing to donate some but no luck so far. I think as an in between I might look around for some scrap planks of wood that can do the same job, then aim to transition to the more visually pleasing willow further down the road.

The end of the bed nearest the gate in full of beautiful bulbs in spring, but I find it lacks leafy green cover, especially in summer. It’s a shady spot so I think the best filler for it would be alchemilla mollis - Lady’s mantle, which I’m going to attempt to grow from seed to save money. I’ve also added three Japanese anemones rescued from garden centre clearance sales, hopefully next year there’ll be blooming anemones everywhere!

I also took issue with the red ladybird poppies I sowed back when I first made this best, combined with yellow yarrow and blue delphiniums they brought the colour palette closer to primary colours than I ever want to be. I went through and cut and removed all of the seed heads (more time consuming than just pulling the plants out, but we’ve got to keep our minds on soil health at all times) and will be swapping them for white and grey/purple poppies next year.

But what about water?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss watering these beds in the drought we’re currently experiencing. I have been using mains water…but not for much longer! After a couple of years of me asking the church council have finally approved the installation of a water butt, except it’s not a single barrel water butt… it’s a 1900l tank. I am hoping with a few of the heavy downpours we’re prone to these days we can be on our way to making the churchyard self sufficient in water.

In the meantime, I rely a lot on heavy mulching to reduce the need for water. Often I’ll dig down through the mulch layer in one of the beds and find that although the day is scorching hot, the soil is still cool and damp underneath. I also don’t water every day (I refuse to grow anything that requires that of me), to save time, save water, and grow what I think are stronger, more resilient plants. Watering infrequently but deeply teaches the plant’s roots to grow deep into the soil instead of relying on surface water. All of these beds can handle me neglecting them for days at a time.

I consider my most important watering task keeping the various dishes and trays of water I have out for wildlife. Everything benefits from these, but most often I get to watch the birds drinking from them, having baths, and in the case of the pigeons with their favourite dish, simply sitting in them to cool down. Most are placed in the beds themselves so they are relatively sheltered, which I think adds to the reasons for the edible bed being such a popular haunt for birds.

It took me a bit longer to realise that the drought doesn’t just affect the amount of water available, but also the amount of food that the birds can forage, as worms and many other invertebrates in and on the soil are much harder to find. I always bring a small amount of pre-soaked mealworms for my most reliable assistant, Hyzenthlay the blackbird, but I noticed a few weeks ago that I was also being shadowed by a set of song thrush, blackbird (not Hyzenthlay’s), and robin fledglings, who were trying their best to sneak some of her leftovers. The confidence of robins and blackbirds never surprises me, but I’ve never know song thrushes to purposely stay this close to a human which make me think they must really be in dire straits, so I’ve started bringing extra rations and leaving them mostly along the walls so they’re out of reach of hedgehogs.

One of the robin fledglings seems to be sticking around for the long term, or at least I hope he is, as he’s a sweet little thing and even Hyzenthlay doesn’t seem to overly mind sharing her food with him.

Back to the meadow

I’ve been sharpening my scythe to cut the majority of the meadow this week, but I’ve been cutting sections of it continually since April. I particularly focused on the edge that runs along the cobbled path, as it’s usually where visitors stand and complain that it looks a mess. Last year it was mostly brambles and nettles, but repeated cutting and removing has allowed much of it to become grass instead. Some of the seeds I sowed a year or even two years ago began popping up - mostly crested dog’s tail and common bent grasses, plus a little bit of red bartsia. I have realised that having meadow species dotted throughout an otherwise scrubby area makes cutting more difficult as I have to work around anything I want to keep until it goes to seed, so I think next year I won’t add anything new to this section and will stick with a regular cutting regime to get the soil fertility down.

When it comes to the larger area where I’ve already added yellow rattle I’ve decided to sow several new species. When I started this project I was very on the side of not interfering with what species were there already, but two years on I’ve decided that I’m fully entering my meddling era. I’ve ordered seeds for devil’s bit scabious, toadflax, cuckoo flower (we have tiny amount of this in one of the areas that is kept very short, so I’d like it to have a chance to flourish in the meadow, harebell (same as cuckoo flower, present in lawn areas), agrimony, meadow buttercup (we have it in small amounts, but as it also makes a wonder addition to flower arrangements I’d like more), and lastly on a complete whim I picked up some pasqueflower seeds. This last one is quite rare so I was surprised to find seeds of it being sold, and as we have a population of it growing nearby on Ledsham Bank nature reserve I thought we should give it a try. I think my chances of successfully introducing it to the churchyard are probably about 0.001%, but you never know. I’ve discovered on my meadow journey that many of these seeds will probably sit and do nothing next year, then kick into gear the year after that, so patience is needed. I also started to grow a patch of kidney vetch at the far end of the car park flower bed (it’s south facing and gets drained dry by the nearby yew tree, creating the gravelly environment kidney vetch enjoys) in the hope of enticing the small blue butterfly as it’s the sole food plant of their caterpillars.

I’m adding species and recording as much as possible on iNaturalist for the love of biodiversity, but also because once the churchyard gets closed for burials (which it will soon) it gets managed by North Yorkshire Council instead. I fear what might happen under this change of leadership so having records of how biodiverse the site is might prove important.

It was heartening to see how the meadow coped well in the drought, and the clearest sign of this was actually in the areas that are usually mown very short. Of course the grass gave up and died a while back so no mowing has been needed, but it its wake the native wildflowers have carried on blooming. Ox eye daisy, field scabious, bird’s-foot trefoil, hawkbit, yarrow, and best of all, harebells have shot up in the absence of the lawn mower, apparently unbothered by the lack of rain.

30 by 30… or not

Although it didn’t affect the churchyard itself, I think the General Synod’s recent vote on if the church commissioners should commit to rewilding 30% of church land by 2030 deserves a mention in all this. To give you the brief version - an amendment put forward by the Bishop of Norwich (our lead for the environment, keep that in mind) removed any area based targets and instead pledged to ‘where appropriate, continue to support nature restoration projects, and engage and collaborate with tenants about sustainable farming”, and it was with this amendment that the motion was passed. So, no area based targets for the commissioners to be held accountable for, no requirement for any kind of external accountability at all, only a promise that they’ll do their best. I’m not an advocate for rewilding productive farmland willy nilly without consideration of how we’ll produce enough food, but this amendment could have set a lower percentage as a target, it could have focused on certain types of land, anything really, except for the nothing we got. The church commissioners continue to refuse to release a full map and details of the land they own so there is no transparency about their actions.

I don’t know what to do about this massive failure of our leadership, except to be continue to be a great irritation within the CofE, and do the work that is put in front of me at the churchyard as best I can.

The nations raged, but thy wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, for rewarding thy servants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear thy name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.

Revelation 11:18

- Chloe

It’s almost April and I’m returning from absence here on Substack, although I have been lurking around the churchyard fairly consistently!

I had surgery in February, so in the run up to that I threw everything I had into finishing the task of clearing the edible bed of rubble as I knew that would probably be the last exercise I could add back in to my routine. I did a reasonable task of it, it’s now dug up to the path that will cut through it and behind the church hall. I will do something with the patch on the other side of the path eventually, but for now I’ve had about all I can handle with digging rocks out of this spot.

Around this time I also developed a passion for hellebores and found myself daydreaming about creating a patch of them here. But the price is a bit prohibitive (£15 each is fine if you just want one or two for a small garden, but filling somewhere the size of the churchyard would quickly bankrupt the church). Fortunately post op I stayed in a holiday rental that had a wonderful shaded garden which included hellebores. The owner kindly let me collect the seedlings from the adult plants, so I spent day three of my recovery half in a hedge digging them out.

I planted out the two year old seedlings straight away, but have left the younger ones in a tray for now while they grow. I keep gloating over this little hellebore collection with what can only be described as biblical greed.

While I was recuperating things carried on at the churchyard, and I had the joy of watching all the bulbs I planted last year pop up. First were the iris reticulatas, then wild garlic. The original batch of wild garlic I planted about two years ago is looking far more robust this year and a lot of it is flowering - which is very appreciated, as I’m still resisting eating the leaves while it gets established but the flowers are fair game as far as I’m concerned.

Tulips and more irises are now coming up in the flower bed, but what I’m most excited for is popping up near the church door - snake’s head fritillaries.

I wasn’t expecting much from these as a couple of locals told me they had tried them with no luck, so seeing several of them flowering is amazing. I’m hoping they will settle in and naturalise on their own, although I might be unable to resist planting some more this autumn just in case.

I eased back into gardening by sowing yet more hollyhocks, these ones from seed I collected outside the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham back in December as I thought it’d be nice to have a little piece of it here, then cracked on with hand weeding once again. I do this as part of the agreement to stop the use of herbicide, but there are some plants I just can’t bring myself to tear up, so I leave snapdragons, violas, erigeron, and purple toadflax alone (I also collect the seeds and poke them in more places as the idea of a car park full of snapdragons is delightful to me).

As I began to feel back to normal I made up yet another job for myself to do in the shape of a new flower bed. I have been repairing the old herbicide dead patches by reseeding them with grass, but this particular area is south facing and completely sheltered from the wind by the church building, so just turfing it over felt a bit criminal to me. I’ve weeded it, cut the edge in, and turned it over to get all the rocks out - fortunately this was much easier than the edible bed and it only took me two weeks of quick morning sessions before work to get done.

I have no budget for this bed so how I fill it will have to be figured out as I go along, but I know what I want there. I spent my period of convalescence becoming slightly obsessed with growing flowers for cutting, which isn’t an area of gardening I’ve explored before beside growing some sweet peas at the allotment. I’ve been researching the best ways to do this in an eco friendly manner, what plants and varieties will work best here, etc - I’d like to focus on perennials, partly as they require less biological input, but also because I’m very limited on space to start annuals. It’s a steep learning curve, but most things are when you compulsively create elaborate plans for things you have little to no experience in.

Finally, back to the meadow. Getting the scythe out is going to be something I wait for the six week post op milestone to do, not because the scything itself is physically demanding but that raking the cuttings up afterwards is. This will be just in time for a spring cut and I’ll finally clear some of the scrub that I was leaving aside for hibernating insects (it’ll be removed just around the corner near the compost bays to continue being used for wildlife habitat).

In the meantime the meadow grass seeds I sowed into the molehills are germinating, I also sowed some sainfoin into this area, and the scabious and oxeye daisy leaves are already popping up. I’m excited to see how the meadow develops this year now it’s been put under a more robust cutting regime thanks to the scythe and very aggressively raked to remove dead matter that might block wildflower seedlings, something I didn’t get around to last year!

Chloe x

I’ve been working on the churchyard for two years now, and from the beginning I wanted a scythe. This was for several reasons, but mainly that I hate strimming. I hate the noise, I hate how having to continuously hold the button makes my hand cramp, I hate the damage they do, I hate how they spit bits of plant matter that invariably end up in my hair, the microplastics they leave in their wake, I could go on. I’ve spent most of this year coming up with various reasons for why I couldn’t strim, which is why the wild side of the churchyard remained uncut even after the end of summer.

I finally got the go ahead to purchase a scythe, and it was only once I’d ordered it that I properly realised that now I would have to figure out how to use the bloody thing.

I had a lot of bucolic visions of me sweeping around the churchyard with it, but no experience to actually put them into practice. My research told me first and foremost to not teach myself and go on a course, but that wasn’t an option - partly because it’s the wrong time of year, and because they’re understandably in rural areas and I don’t drive (due to a chronic pain condition and the medication I take for it, which is another reason I dislike using the strimmer; I can’t be trusted with machinery, but a foot long blade is fine for some reason).

I set about ignoring that advice by watching every video on scything on Youtube I could find. I learned from all of them, but by far the channel I found the most useful was Slåttergubben. He breaks things down in a way that is very easy to follow, but also dives into more detail and explanation than other instructors I found.

I spent a fair bit of time not trying to cut grass at all and just practicing the cutting and shuffling forward motion, something that seems very simple on paper but in reality is easy to overthink and have you forget to do one or the other at the same time. Once again I found Slåttergubben very helpful at this point, I rewatched his videos a few times on the motion of the cut and eventually managed to figure it out; a half moon arc, slight pressure on the right side that rolls along the blade as you cut and ends on the tip (aka ‘toe’) of the blade on the left hand side. No hacking down from an angle or finishing by flinging the blade up at the end of a cut. I’m fortunate that the locals here have a very high tolerance for my weird behaviour and didn’t blink an eye at me walking up and down the same stretch of grass at 7am swinging a scythe, deeply absorbed in a wax on, wax off zone of thought.

I couldn’t properly get mowing until I tackled the task I was most confused by; peening the blade. I ordered a peening jig along with the scythe as I knew it was in some way important, but honestly had no idea what the device actually did. I once again deferred to Slåttergubben and his excellent video on this topic. The warden kindly cut a log down to size for me to fit the jig into, and I rummaged through his toolbox until I found a hammer that seemed to be the right weight.

In a nutshell, peening is the action of ‘pulling’ the metal on the very edge of the blade down, making it thinner and therefor better for cutting, if you haven’t peened a blade you can hone and hone all day but won’t be able to create an edge sharp enough.

The peening jig makes this very easy, you use the first of the two caps it comes with to does the ‘pulling’ action, and then the second hardens the new edge. You just pop the edge of the blade under the cap and hammer your way along. I found the best way to learn the right tempo and speed to move the blade along was to not overthink it and just listen to the rhythm of an instructor doing it and try to mimic that, rather than counting hits and millimetres.

I thought that after a year of working on my hand and wrist strength (after getting an RSI in my hand last year from embroidery) I’d have this in hand, but my first peening session humbled me. But, after a month or so of practicing I can feel my wrist is much stronger and I can go along a whole blade without needing to pause now. This also involved just learning how to use the hammer properly and allowing it to do the work rather than putting any real force into each strike.

As for blades, I ordered a grass blade, which is the longest and most widely used for meadow cutting, and a ditch blade, which is slightly shorter and better for rough grasses and some scrub. It turns out the majority of our sward falls under the second category, and the ditch blade has become my most used. I also just purchased a bush blade because I discovered that yes, you can use a ditch blade on grass as well as scrub, but if you’ve peened it thin enough to use on grass and then try to use that thin edge on scrub, you will earn yourself a cracked blade (which was a good opportunity to learn how to repair cracks, the ditch blade is now back in good health). The bush blade can handle scrub and even small saplings, so from now on I’m planning to use the ditch for grass only and switch to the bush for anything else. Hopefully as our meadow improves I’ll get more use out of the original grass blade!

It took a couple of weeks of practicing the motion of the scythe and peening to the correct sharpness, but finally I had a moment where everything clicked, and I ended up cutting an entire section of the meadow at in one go because I got fully carried away. Suddenly you’re not trying to remember to put the right amount of pressure on the blade, and to keep it sweeping along the ground rather than flicking it up, and to complete a full arc so you’re almost putting your left hand into your back pocket, and to shuffle forward at the right pace… you’re just doing it. You end up in a meditative, rocking motion as you work, the only sound you’re creating is the quiet shh of the blade as it cuts through the sward, the cuttings piling themselves into windrows for you to collect later.

Rather than making up excuses to avoid strimming, I’m now having to remind myself to finish other jobs around the churchyard instead of scything all the time. I’m hopeful that this will help the meadow come along in leaps and bounds now, not only do I enjoy scything but it’s faster than strimming so doing cuts is going to be much easier to fit into my schedule.

I suspected that a fascination with scything would overtake me when I was finally able to purchase one, and I was correct. I owe an apology to every man that I have ever judged for being obsessed with cars or power tools, because I think I feel the same way now, I spend probably too much time looking at different blades online and sometimes pop my head into the shed just to look at it proudly. What a fantastic piece of human ingenuity.

The voles have appreciated the new, more sympathetic cutting regime. There are sections that are never cut so they always have somewhere safe to go, but they do seem to be particularly enthusiastic about the windrows I leave behind.

Fortunately I have also found the time to finish off jobs in other areas of the churchyard. The flower bed has been chopped and dropped for winter (although I will be adding more mulch over the next couple of months), and the last of the bulbs planted. I estimate I planted something in the region of 500+ bulbs this autumn; wild garlic, English bluebells, tulips, irises, grape hyacinths, snake’s head fritillaries, and some mystery bulbs donated by an anonymous local (I don’t ask questions when plants turn up next to the shed for me, I just whack them in). I’m at the end of my bulb planting endurance and although I normally do some in spring, I think this time I might need a break until next autumn.

The tarmac dump in the edible bed has been defeated (kind of), it’s only now I’m looking back on it that I realised how gruelling that job was. There isn’t as much organic matter there as I’d like (I can tell from how rain pools on it), so I’ve been putting all of the weeds and mud I remove from the path there instead. It’s full of worms so I don’t think it’s a lost cause, I knew there would be areas where it would take years to restore the soil so I just need to mindful of what I plant there next year.

I’m now onto the last section, and it’s such a relief to get back to digging out normal rocks. I see the end of this job in sight at long last, and I’m looking forward to a summer of only having to plant stuff in it instead of wrestling rocks out with my bare hands.

Hyzenthlay seems happy that I’m back to spending more time in that bed, she’s overwintering in the tree above it and doing screaming flybys at my head whenever I look too relaxed. She’s popping down for the odd worm but mostly eating berries, it’s interesting to see that even when the option of worms is there now she opts for the berries anyway, but won’t touch a berry in summer. I also have quite strict rules about what I eat and when so it’s a stance I can appreciate.

The churchyard jobs never end, as well as more rock digging in the edible bed I’ll be tidying the path edge along the wild side, and removing any plants I don’t want growing in the old herbicide patches along that stretch to make room for meadow varieties, and maybe at some point finally starting to build the dead hedge I’ve been waffling about for at least a year.

Until 2026,

Chloe x

It feels like autumn is in full swing here, the leaves are falling all around and mushrooms are popping up. I’m really enjoying the last of the light mornings now the clocks have changed, I love the weather at this time of year but the loss of daylight is always hard.

We haven’t had a good frost yet which is proving challenging in the edible bed as I was relying on that to kill off the nasturtiums, instead they’re growing apace and turning a bit feral. As well as eating them, I’ve started chopping and dropping some of them whenever I get a spare minute. I want the other plants to have some breathing space now we’re into wetter weather, and I need to crack on with laying the path which is a bit difficult when it’s been swamped by nasturtium vines.

Things have got completely out of control in the flower bed, I’ve started dropping and chopping plants in there but as I’ve seen a fair few bumblebees still on the flowers I’ve been hesitant about clearing everything just yet. I have a large stash of bulbs that I want to plant in this section by the gate in November, a mix of tulips and irises of various types so it will hopefully be a showstopper next spring (if the squirrels stay away).

One task I did manage to tick off in its entirety in October was to plant 50 snake’s head fritillary bulbs into some of the old herbicide patches and resow the grass. Unsurprisingly, since the use of herbicide has stopped the bare patches it left have been recolonised by aggressive weeds, and it’ll be a slow process to turn these areas back into lawn (the areas in the meadow will be another, more complicated, story).

With these areas I weeded everything out, dug in the fritillary bulbs, then resowed the surface with grass. I consider this task done for the year as I was only doing it until the box of grass seed I used back in spring ran out, as we’re now in November it’s too cold to do any more so I will pick this job back up in spring.

I’ve used two different suppliers for the snake’s head bulbs, and planted them in several different places to try and increase the chances of some actually popping up next year as I have heard a lot of people say they struggled to get them going. One particularly long shot is this area by the church doors, which because of the guttering alternatively floods and drains, so I’m attempting to trick the bulbs into thinking they’re in a flood meadow (as they are in Oxford, which is where I fell in love with them). If even one pops its head up next year I’ll be very happy!

A less interesting but deeply satisfying task I’ve been working on is cutting the edges on the path back in. I did this last year in yet another attempt to convince the warden to stop using herbicide and I think I’m going to make it a yearly job, it’s an easy way to make the place look tidy without too much effort (I just do a few feet of it each time I’m up there).

A few days ago I arrived to discover the grass full of hoof marks, and had to do a quick walk around to make sure there weren’t any horses in the churchyard itself. This isn’t the first time horses from the field next door have broken in (they’re kept out by a haha wall but in some spots it’s too low) but this is the first time they then put themselves back in their own field afterwards, perhaps in an attempt to hide their misdeeds.

Between them and some helpful moles I’ve had patches of bare earth to drop various meadow seeds into, a task I normally have to do on my hands and knees with a weeding tool, so I’m very grateful for the help!

After two years of strimming I got the go ahead to buy a scythe for the meadow last week! Of course, now I have the far more difficult task of teaching myself how to scythe (there are no courses nearby). I’m not sure if it’s too late to scythe the area of meadow that’s in the best condition (so the sward is very fine), but hopefully if I receive the additional ditch blade (for use on scrubbier areas) I can start practicing with that, and by next spring I’ll maybe be able to do my first early season cut with it. I hate strimming with a fiery passion, and although I’ll still need to in some sections I’m looking forward to leaving it in the shed more often.

The job that’s been taking up most of my time has been the gargantuan task of getting the building rubble out of the edible bed, back in February I though I could have this done by April, the absolute delusion of it all! I’ve pushed hard at clearing this last section along the wall so I can finish planting the line of tayberries and put some poles in to create supports and am almost there. Then I only have 1/3 of the bed left to clear… joy.

By far the most exciting thing to happen in October was the return of the myth, the legend, the woman herself, Hyzenthlay. She disappeared at the beginning of September and while I tried to remain hopeful as I knew birds get more reclusive when their feathers moult, almost two months went by without a sign and I started to accept that she had quietly shuffled off this mortal coil somewhere. Fortunately she does nothing quietly, and last week I was hacking away at rocks in the edible bed when she hopped down onto a rock and proceeded to yell at me like she hadn’t just gone AWOL.

I get the feeling she’s not much in need for food at the moment and just stopped by to say hello. I’m not sure if she’ll be after me for more mealworms as the weather gets colder or if she has a good spot for winter berries near by, but it’s raised my spirits to know that she’s still here and as bombastic as ever.

Chloe x

Churchyard and Burial Ground Action Pack, Caring For God’s Acre

This first title is the only one dealing specifically with churchyards (and isn’t really a book, but missing it out for that reason seemed silly). Created by Caring For God’s Acre, a secular charity dedicated to managing burial grounds for nature, it takes you through all the basics of grassland management, tree and hedgerow care, and some of the churchyard specifics you won’t find in the other titles here, caring for gravestones, metalwork, and stone walls, and explains how to create new habitats for various types of wildlife. It also has a section on managing volunteers, health and safety, and how to deal with public perceptions that may arise with allowing grass to grow long.

This was really useful when I was first starting out in the churchyard and covers everything you need to get started. I still refer back to it sometimes when I’m wondering if I’ve gone too off-piste (the charity works closely with the church so I tend to think if something’s mentioned in this guide, it’s acceptable for me to do it. This might not be correct).

Restoring the Wild, Donald MacIntyre

Written by the founder of Emorsgate Seeds, this book is mostly concerned with meadow creation and management, but does also include chapters on other habitats. Fittingly considering the author’s line of work it delves deeply into the creation of new meadows for some time before going onto managing existing meadows. Although in the churchyard I am starting with an existing meadow, most of it is so damaged and degraded that it often feels like I am starting from scratch, so I found the time spent on this section very useful.

I tab things I find useful as I read them then go back and write up a quick note of my main take aways, in this title I mostly flagged his discussion of 221 ‘restoration species’; these are species selected for use in habitat restoration and creation in Britain. I’m always mindful of what new species I introduce and where, so this in depth guide to them has proved very helpful. I believe this was where I learned that yellow rattle doesn’t have local ecotypes (generally introducing new species is best done by collecting seeds in the local area as they will be genetically more suited to your site, but apparently yellow rattle is just yellow rattle wherever you are).

Grassland Restoration and Management, David Blakesley and Peter Buckley

This one is literally the textbook on grassland management, you need to be extremely invested in unimproved grasslands to get through it. It covers many case studies over time which was very useful in understanding how less favourable sites can develop, and goes over the specifics of cutting times and lengths, use of livestock, and how to monitor progress.

Meadows, Christopher Lloyd

I found this book an interesting change of pace after so many titles by ecologists. Christopher Lloyd (of Great Dixter fame) covers much of the ground you’ll find in the books I’ve already discussed, but comes at it from the perspective of a gardener with aesthetic goals in mind. Although I’m doing my best to make the churchyard a home for wildlife, it needs to be for people as well. I’m always thinking about how the things I do will be perceived by the people who pass through, and hope that the changes will be positive ones to them.

Christo rejects some flowers simply on the grounds that they ‘lack glamour’, something I regularly do myself.

Woodland Flowers, Keith Kirby

I decided quite early on in the churchyard project that I wanted to create a woodland meadow, but hadn’t come across anywhere near as much information about them as I had for grassland meadows, which is why I sought out this book. This is where I learned how dramatic bluebells are about having their leaves damaged (which is why I plan to make dead hedges through this area, to keep everyone off of the bluebell sites), and how difficult it actually is to create a bluebell wood from scratch, as in the wild they develop over hundreds of years. I’m trying anyway, this is holy ground so you never know, we might get a miracle.

Wilding and The Book of Wilding, Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell

I’ve included both of these books as the first (Wilding) is a great introduction to the Knepp rewilding project and very readable, but The Book of Wilding is the one that really breaks down the specifics of managing a rewilding project. Much of it discusses sites much larger than a churchyard, but it does include sections on how to manage smaller areas like gardens.

I think the most important thing I took away from this book is that the smaller your site, the more human intervention is needed. You need an area as large as Knepp to be able to reintroduce keystone species and can then sit back as natural systems develop on their own. I sometimes wonder if I’m overly interfering in the churchyard, hand weeding out some species not others, timing cuts in the meadow to meet my own personal goals, etc, but this book really helped me see that that is an integral part of managing a site that is, in the grand scheme of things, so small. We can’t have roving herds of cattle to graze the meadow and hinder the spread of scrub, so I have to be stand in who creates the episodic intervention needed for increased biodiversity (sometimes this role is helpfully taken on by teenagers kicking their way through the undergrowth so they can sit on the outer wall, or escaped horses from the field next door).

The next few books don’t necessarily cover ecological management, but they’re all fascinating reads that helped me better understand the natural systems in the churchyard and how to help them.

Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake

All about the above and below ground life of fungi, mycelium plays a vital role in plant and soil health, but we so often forget it. This one helped me see the churchyard as one living whole, everything is interconnected and what we do in one section can have ramifications over others.

Perhaps is isn’t so hard for us to relate to lichens after all. This sort of relationship-building enacts one of the oldest evolutionary maxims. If the word ‘cyborg’ - short for cybernetic organism - describes the fusion between a living organism and a piece of technology, then we, life all other life forms, are symborgs, or symbiotic organisms. The authors of a seminal paper on the symbiotic view of life take a clear stance on this point. ‘There have never been individuals,’ they declare. ‘We are all lichens.’

Rebirding, Benedict MacDonald

This isn’t just about birds, MacDonald explains that we have the space in Britain to restore nature while also still producing food and enough homes for everyone. It’s a visionary view of the future we could have, and cemented my decision not to have bird feeders in the churchyard. As well as the risk of disease spreading at feeders, most of the birds struggling today aren’t ones who would use a bird feeder in the first place. They’re either suffering from habitat loss due to the intensification of agriculture or from lack of food due to the decline in invertebrate populations. The best thing I can do for the birds is to create a safe home with as many different habitats as possible, and to make it as rich with insect life as I can.

It also introduced me to the term ‘ecological tidiness disorder’, which has helped me categorise many of the issues I find myself pushing back against in the churchyard.

A Sting in the Tale, Dave Goulson

Over a period of fifty years, we therefore destroyed almost all of the flower-rich habitats in the UK, and 98 per cent of our lowland hay meadows disappeared. The short-haired bumblebee died out because the habitats in which it lived were swept away, It wasn’t all that fussy; it just needed enough flowers to feed on. No flowers equals no bees. It’s not rocket science.

We’re very lucky that the churchyard is home to several bumblebee nests (as Goulson says in his book, the best way to find a nest is to sit and watch bumblebees until you can eventually follow them as they return to the nest. Fortunately I spend a lot of time at the churchyard staring at bumblebees), and this title is a great insight to their lives and the habitats they need.

The Permaculture Garden, Huw Richards

I’ve been learning from Huw’s videos on Youtube ever since I got my allotment, but now I’m creating an edible bed in the churchyard his newest book on permaculture has been a really useful reference. It covers the basics of permaculture (in short - earth care, people care, fair share), soil health, pest ‘control’, and how to get the most out of your growing space. He dedicates a lot of space to perennial plants (which are generally lower maintenance and better for the environment than annuals) and I’ve been keeping an eye on various nurseries to snap some of the more unusual ones up. I’m hoping over time to shift the majority of the edible bed to perennials and use it to introduce people to these amazing plants, and to shift the entire churchyard to a permaculture system...one day!

The One-Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka

This manifesto for natural farming covers the “do-nothing” technique Fukuoka used to manage his land, but also delves into the philosophy behind it, and the importance of cultivating human beings alongside agriculture. Truly inspiring, I think it’s a must read for anyone interested in alternatives to industrial agriculture.

And this “natural” farming that has its source and end in reverence is everywhere human and humane. Humans work best when they work for human good, not for the “higher production” or “increased efficiency” which have been the nearly exclusive goals of industrial agriculture. “The ultimate goal of farming,” Mr Fukuoka says, “is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” And he speaks of agriculture as a way: “To be here, caring for a small field, in full possession of the freedom and plentitude of each day, every day - this must have been the original way of agriculture.” An agriculture that is whole nourishes the whole person, body and soul. We do not live by bread alone.

- Wendell Berry in the preface to The One Straw Revolution

I’m always looking for new books to read that might assist me in the churchyard project so I’m sure I’ll be doing a part two to this article in the future!

- Chloe

The building debris includes large lumps of tarmac, and initially I thought if I couldn’t dig them out I would just start adding more organic matter on top to build up the soil level, then grow shallow rooted plants there. But at some point this idea changed and instead I had a vision of a row of tayberries growing all along that wall, so the tarmac has to go.

Most of it has proved too heavy for the fork, so I’ve dragged the pick axe out of the shed. It did work but very slowly, until one of the churchyard regulars showed me how to hit the tarmac from the side rather than the top as I had been. It’s still going to be a laborious job but my spirits are buoyed by the knowledge that it is possible to shift.

Recently I’ve been reading and watching about Incredible Edible, a community gardening project started in the UK. Despite having spent most of the year creating an edible growing space for the public I hadn’t actually heard of IE until recently, when someone from the group in the next village over offered me some plants for this patch. It’s interesting see that in many ways I’m going counter to their advice on growing recognisable vegetables, well laid out with plenty of signage.

My planting design from the beginning has always been based on polyculture, for several reasons. As much as possible I want to avoid having this bed look like an allotment, as it’s a graveyard with recent burials. The goal is for someone who knows nothing about plants to think it’s just a normal decorative bed, so to that end I’ve tried to pick plants with a lot of visual interest and many that flower. I also find this method to help control pests with the use of coverings, you can see in the photo above that I planted the curly kale right up against a large rosemary bush in an attempt to confuse the white butterflies, then grew nasturtiums as a sacrificial plant everywhere else. So far the kale has escaped the caterpillars altogether without me doing anything, but there’s a healthy population of them on the nasturtiums.

I’m trying to keep compost and manure use to a minimum; partly to keep things affordable, and partly to work toward creating a closed loop system in the churchyard. My main input so far has been grass cuttings produced by the mowing in other areas. Having access to such a large quantity of it has been incredibly helpful, I use it to protect the soil from erosion, keep, moisture in, repress weed regrowth, and it’s beginning to rot down and add nutrients to the soil too.

Plant health is all well and good, but what’s the point if it isn’t easy for passerbys to see what it is? I acknowledge that I will have a much harder time convincing locals with this design, but the positives outweighed the negatives for me. I really want this to be an opportunity to introduce people to more perennial vegetables and fruit they haven’t tried before, and to demonstrate growing in a way that protects and builds the soil, and doesn’t involve rotavating or buying in mass amounts of compost.

I’ve posted on our local Facebook page when a couple of plants were ready to pick (and I think someone did come pick some chard) but I’m not pushing heavily as there’s not a huge amount growing there at the moment and I still have a lot of rock removing to do. Next year I’m considering asking the church if we can arrange some guided walks around the edible bed after the Sunday service when there’s more people around (I’d advertise this on Facebook too). I could take them through the bed and talk about the more unusual plants and how to cook them, and generally get them used to being in there and not feeling like they’re stealing if they take something. But, worst comes to worst and no one uses it, it means I have an entire garden’s worth of food to eat myself (and the bees have definitely appreciated the extra flowers).

Chloe x

I went away for a week, which is always a risky move during the growing season.

The cobbled path that was immaculately weeded is reverting to its natural state, full of groundsel, dandelions, and hogweed. I personally quite enjoy it like this, but part of the agreement to end herbicide use was that I weed what would otherwise be sprayed. I do bend the rules on occasion though, such as leaving any ragwort plants last month as the cinnabar moth caterpillars were in full swing.

Another example of my selective weeding is the car park walls, where I’ve been leaving snap dragons, toadflax, and erigeron. I actually want to encourage these plants to spread further along the outer wall, as I’m trying to fill the vacuum left behind by my weeding with conventionally attractive plants so we can hopefully transition to a system of minimal weeding. One of my many autumn jobs is to crawl along this wall and poke erigeron and chamomile seeds into the base for next year.

The edible garden is ticking along, most of my time at the moment is spent digging the rubble out of this bed, which was created when the house standing there was demolished and the church hall built. Once an area has been dug over and the rocks removed I cover it with cut grass, which is helping to turn what was originally some of the most dismal and degraded soil I’ve ever encountered into a nice growing medium. I will be using a no-dig approach in the future, but as you can’t no dig on top of a layer of roof tiles this initial disruption is necessary.

That being said, the far end that I’m now approaching seems to contain a lot of gravel and I’m not sure if it’ll be possible to remove it, I’m going to give it a try and if not just keep adding organic matter on top and building up the soil level over time. I’d love to get this all done before the ground starts to freeze in November but I’m often delusional about how long it takes to do things so if I’m still hacking away at it next spring I won’t be surprised.

I’m at that point in summer where I’m starting to make a note of jobs for autumn, and as well as continuing to remove rocks from this bed, I also need to crack on with properly laying the path through it. I did this with the first stone so it’s completely level and stable, then decided it was too much of a fiddly job to be messing around with during the growing season and threw in the towel. I want visitors to be able to stroll through and pick their own food so making it reasonably accessible (it’s on a slope so will always require a bit of scrambling) is important.

I’m also hoping to be able to pick up some more cheap fruit bushes in the autumn, we currently have gooseberries, raspberries, honeyberries, and red and white currants, but I’m toying with the idea of having a row of loganberries/tayberries running along the length of the church hall wall if I can pick some up at a reasonable price (and get the lumps of gravel out).

The most egregious example of me dismissing jobs until autumn is the woodland meadow, and any viewer would be justified in saying that it does little to resemble that name. Except for the areas directly under the trees it will happily turn into scrub if left to its own devices, and has spent all summer doing just that.

The dream? A woodland glade full of wild garlic and bluebells, with a winding path created by a low dead hedge. This area probably best explains why I never refer to what I’m doing here as rewilding, as due to our lack of grazing herds keeping the scrub at bay requires a lot of human intervention, and creating healthy populations of plants like wild garlic even more so. As well as wanting to keep things looking under control and attractive for visitors, it’s worth remembering that we have a great deal of scrub around the outside of the churchyard (and in the centre of the meadow, see previous post) but very little woodland habitat if we allow this area to go become overgrown. When kept more open it’s our best spot for fungi, and adding more dead material will help them flourish.

I’ve already made a start of clearing the scrub, as it’s all new growth from this year it’s fortunately quite easy to pull out by hand, then if I have enough budget I’d like to plant some more wild garlic and bluebells (the garlic bulbs I planted last autumn have popped up but the bluebells remain elusive), and then finally make a start on the dead hedge path through the middle. That’s something that will be doable even when we get a frost so hopefully this task at least will not follow me into 2026.

My work in the churchyard began in the meadow, so it seems fitting to begin this Substack with a closer look at what it is exactly, and the history behind it.

Despite the underwhelming name, unimproved grasslands are a vital habitat and increasingly rare in the UK, they’re made up of land that has never been ploughed, fertilised, or reseeded with fast growing grasses. Many existed as hay meadows until around World War II, when the increased need for homegrown food meant these meadows were ploughed and brought into food production. The figure you’ll see thrown around most often is that we have lost 97% of our unimproved grasslands since 1932 (the loss has continued, so it’s possible that figure is now higher, but at the same time in an attempt to combat the loss many new meadows have been created, so we can hope that it remains the same at the very least, and maybe even working towards improvement on that figure).

Grasslands are an important carbon store, the perennial nature of the flowers allows much of the soil to remain undisturbed (unlike the release of carbon when ploughing for annual crops), and this also makes them drought resistant as their roots can reach deeper into the soil. The soil is usually nutrient poor, which restricts the growth of more aggressive, fast growing plants, and allows the more delicate meadow flowers to flourish.

Grasslands are home to a variety of fauna and flora, in particular ground nesting birds and pollinators such as as bumblebees (we are fortunate to have several bumblebee nests in our churchyard).

Due to the nature of churchyards remaining undeveloped, they have (mostly) managed to maintain their unimproved grasslands and have become important ecological sites in their own right. The oldest parts of our current church building date from the 12th century, and before that there was an Anglo-Saxon building; for a thousand years the churchyard would have been managed as a hay meadow, so either being cut, dried, and removed, or having grazing animals placed in it.

It’s always a bit sobering when I remember that the meadow actually outdates even the oldest parts of the church building, and yet preserving it is deemed far less important.

I’ve covered how increased agriculture has caused meadow loss, but it isn’t the sole culprit, the other actor in this is exactly what befell our meadow…mismanagement.

Managing churchyards as hay meadows created a symbiotic relationship that allowed this habitat to flourish; it provided fodder for livestock, and in turn the sward being collected and removed kept the nutrient levels in the soil down, and the surface clear of dead matter so the growth of next year’s flowers was uninhibited.

But, in recent years management of public green spaces has taken an unfortunate turn, often geared more towards tidiness than sustaining a functional ecosystem.

What happened to our meadow?

I often describe what I’m doing in this area as restoring the meadow, not managing it, as much of it is damaged or destroyed. This has happened due to a mix of under and over management; some of it regularly mown short but the cuttings not removed, creating a nutrient dense grass thatch that many wildflowers can’t break through, and the use of herbicide along the edges has created large dead patches which are quickly recolonised by aggressive, fast growing plants. Under management in that much of it was left to grow for the benefit of wildlife, but the traditional system of cutting and removing at least once a year was not kept to, so over time most the meadow has been overtaken by brambles and turned into scrub (an excellent and vital habitat, but in this case not in the appropriate place).

Thankfully, some of it has survived and there are areas where we can find many of the stalwarts of grasslands, such as bird’s-foot trefoil, field scabious, yarrow, selfheal, knapweed, and oxeye daisy.

I refer to these areas as fragments, but I’m currently reading The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole, and he quotes another ecologist, Ian Rotherham, referring to the small fragments of remaining rainforest as ‘ghost woods’.

But Rotherham’s search for ghost woods isn’t intended merely to mourn what’s departed, rather to resurrect what still survives. As he writes, ‘The ghosts are there in the moors, heaths and grasslands, from extensive grazed “woods” to tiny pockets or roadside verge. You only have to look.’

The Lost Rainforests Of Britain, Guy Shrubsole

So perhaps ‘ghost meadow’ is a better term; where better for ghosts and a hopeful resurrection than a graveyard?

At the end of last year I drew a map of the churchyard, which might help readers visualise the space I’m talking about.

The areas that are in the best condition and contain the widest variety of species are at the edges of either side of the meadow (the left end which is closest to the church building, and the block on the right end next to some trees and the outer wall).

So how do we fix it?

The answer to this is very simple, very monotonous, and very labour intensive - cut and remove the cuttings over and over again, to drive down the fertility of the soil and reduce the grass thatch and dead litter that’s covering the soil. The church strimmed the entire site at the beginning of 2024, and I then spent two weeks raking and removing it all. This was a one off, as cutting everything at the same not only creates an incredible amount of raking to do but also leaves no habitat for existing wildlife to move into. Since then I have been cutting and removing in a mosaic pattern, usually in blocks around 6ft square. Eventually I would like to do this by scything, but until I can convince someone to give me the needed funds I do a mix of strimming and cutting with shears.

The fun doesn’t end there, the dead matter and grass thatch I mentioned also need to go. For the dead matter, as I don’t have access to any sheep (who are for many reasons not the most suitable choice for grazing a grassland, but they are very helpful when ‘aftermath grazing’ where after the cut and remove they’re then placed in to eat what’s left over and clear the soil surface) this involves me grubbing around on my hands and knees and picking it up. The grass thatch (a dense layer of grass roots that create what almost feels like a carpet on top of the soil) is impervious to strimming and so far the best method of breaking through it that I’ve found is to tear it open with a hand weeding tool (on larger sites this could be done by harrowing, but that’s not a viable option in a historic graveyard), and I then sow seeds into the open soil underneath.

Reintroduction

It’s generally advised to not go and buy a generic meadow flower seed mix as this will lessen the local character of your meadow, and it also means that your new plants will not be local ecotypes best suited to your area. I mainly find seeds that I would like to reintroduce along road verges while on runs, they are a surprisingly rich source of biodiversity (make sure to only take a small amount, and if there’s only one or two plants none at all). The most successful reintroduction so far has been salad burnet, an odd looking plant which has leaves that taste like cucumber (I’m considering taking some of the seed from the meadow and adding it to the edible garden).

Anyone who is familiar with meadow management is probably wondering where the section on yellow rattle is, and do not fear, I haven’t forgotten it.

Yellow rattle, known as the ‘meadow maker’ is, unlike all the other flowers I’ve mentioned, an annual rather than a perennial. This does mean it does less well in drought years and the cuts must be timed carefully as it won’t reflower if cut before going to seed (unfortunately this did happen to a large part of my yellow rattle this year due to miscommunication, but enough of it was spared the chop for me to collect a good amount of seed to try again next year). Prepping the ground correctly is important, and this is where I spent a lot of time ripping open the grass thatch so the seeds could come in contact with the soil.

Yellow rattle is an integral part of meadow management and restoration as it is hemiparasitic; it takes some of its nutrients from the roots of nearby grasses. This weakens fast growing grass that would normally outcompete wildflowers. Even the parts of our meadow that are in the best condition have more grass in than is ideal, and the spots that were sown with yellow rattle have markably less dense grass growth this year.

Yellow rattle does nothing to brambles, so there’s no point throwing seeds into the scrub patches.

Speaking of scrub

Does all of the scrub have to go? After a lot of thought I’ve decided that no, it doesn’t.

As everything was strimmed to the ground last year I was able to spend a lot time walking around what is now covered in brambles, and I can say with confidence that it is a health and safety nightmare. The ground is extremely uneven, partly due to collapsed graves but also what seem to be natural undulations in the land, and taking a tumble into an open grave is almost guaranteed. Despite repeatedly walking through every possible route I could never find one where a safe, even path could be created. So on top of all the ecological benefits, the scrub is performing a public service by preventing people from entering these areas.

What I do need to do is stop it from expanding and encroaching on the meadow even more than it is already, and hopefully push it back so that all of the outer edges viewable by the public are meadow/short grass.

When will our ghost meadow become a living one?

It’s hard to specify an end point for the meadow restoration, on the one hand after only a year and a half there have been major improvements (more biodiversity, a reduction in fast growing grasses and hogweed), but on the other it’s still years away from what ecologists would consider favourable condition. For me personally, the goal I’m working towards is the return of the orchids. Many locals have told me there used to be orchids here (presumably lost due to unsympathetic management) so we know our soil has the correct mycelium needed for their survival, and they are growing in nearby sites (orchid seeds are minuscule, dust-like and can be carried on the wind). Orchid seeds can spend years underground developing mycorrhizal networks with fungi, and then a couple more years of only appearing as leaves before finally flowering.

So I will spend the next few years maintaining correct meadow management, preparing the soil, and hoping that one day, they’ll come back.

Hi, I’m Chloe Giordano, I’m an embroiderer and have created children’s books, book covers, licensed my designs for a wide range of products, and sell original pieces. You can see my work on my website www.chloegiordano.com, or on Instagram where I’m most active.

My love of nature runs through my work, but it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve began to put that love into action and try to make a tangible difference in the world outside.

After moving out of York into a small town (although no one here accepts the new town designation and all still call it a village), I regularly went on runs that took me through our parish churchyard, and I noticed that the old side had been left to grow wild. I asked if anyone was managing this area as I could see the wildflowers were being consumed by expanding scrub, it turned out that no one was, so I began a project which started just with restoring the meadow, but has snowballed into also creating a woodland meadow, an edible bed, and a traditional cottage garden flower bed. I also talked my way, perhaps inadvisably, into weeding the entire churchyard by hand to prevent the use of herbicide.

I want to start on a note that I think most gardening/conservation Substacks do not; I am not an expert. I have no relevant qualifications in ecology or gardening design, and I don’t have years of hands on experience either. I got involved with the churchyard at the end of 2023, the same time I started sharing an allotment plot with a friend, and before this I had never gardened any kind of space. The journey since then has been one of trial and error, and the learning curve incredibly steep. I also don’t consider myself a particularly skilled author, and I’m hoping writing on here will help me improve.

I learn as much as I can through books, studies, and webinars, but most importantly feedback from the landscape itself. My goal with this Substack isn’t to act as a teacher to all of you, but instead to bring you on the journey with me, sharing what I find and hopefully even encouraging some of you to get out there and start similar projects in your communities.

Working in a graveyard creates a lot of additional considerations that aren’t present in a private garden. This one is still an ‘open’ graveyard, so burials are on going. When creating and planting new areas I have to keep in mind the fact that people in the midst of grief will be here, so one of my rules for the edible bed is to not include anything that might make it look like an allotment. No nets or coverings, or unsightly supports, and no neat lines of vegetables. My ultimate goal is for a passerby with little gardening knowledge to think it’s just an ordinary decorative bed.

Another factor to consider is that being a public place that’s open 24/7 means that damage or vandalism are always a possibility. I try not to get too attached to individual plants in case any misfortune befalls them, and when it comes to the meadow I remind myself that episodic intervention is actually a good thing. What would have been done thousands of years ago by herds of wild aurochs is now carried out by teenagers stamping their way through to sit on the outer wall, and in one instance also by two horses who escaped from the field next door and spent a morning cavorting amongst the stones.

There are benefits to it being a public space; I definitely find it more exciting to plan new plantings for the churchyard than the allotment (apologies to our allotment neighbours who have to make do with having a feral jungle next door to them because of this) as more people will be able to appreciate it.

No churchyard introduction would be complete without mentioning Hyzenthlay the blackbird, who follows me everywhere shouting for worms, checks my digging is up to scratch, and generously offers moral support when needed (which is often).

I’m looking forward to being able to discuss what I’m doing here in more detail, we’re only 1.5 years into this project and already so much positive change has happened. I recently sat down for a rest on the wall that runs along the back of the cottage garden bed and was mesmerised by the amount of pollinators around me, they were a dense, buzzing crowd which is so rare these days, in what was at the beginning of the year a pile of rubble covered in herbicide. Gardening is an act of hope, and we need that now more than ever.

I will always be providing free content, but paid subscribers will have access to additional posts, and I’ve priced this tier at £3.50 which is the lowest Substack allows.

Thank you,

Chloe x