Discovering Wild Orchids at St Mary’s churchyard - ‘J’ Claypoole

I was excited to find an orchid behind St. Mary’s Church where we have created a wild flower area in the churchyard.    Unfortunately it was rather windy and as you can see my photo is not in focus!  So the next day I went back to put sticks around it and try to get a better snap...... Unfortunately the efficient mowing contractors had mowed it away 😢😢.

This sad story, I’m afraid, shows how difficult it is to create and maintain a wild flower meadow!

We set this area aside some years ago.    Yellow Rattle is making headway to reduce the strong grasses and together with plug plants and a careful once a year cut we are making headway (except for the cutting off of the orchid on the little footpath through the area).    There is a record of the flowers to be found in our Wild Flower Meadow in an album in the church.