TO farmers, I'm the weed man,' declares Donald MacIntyre, founder of Emorsgate Seeds and conservation pioneer. He started collecting wildflowers from east London wastelands in 1980, pinching paper bags from supermarkets to store his coltsfoot. His first growing space was a five-acre plot borrowed from Norfolk County Council, together with snatched corners in council-house gardens across the Fens.
Today, Emorsgate is the UK's biggest wildgrass and flower-seed company, managing 850 acres across sites in Norfolk and Bath, Somerset. On two contrasting topographies -silty and flat in the East, heavy and hilly in the West-the company grows an extensive range of wild-origin plants. Seed is gathered with permission from Natural England or from landowners, then logged in an in-depth database. The seeds are sown in multiplication beds, before being precision drilled into large-scale rows for harvesting.
Emorsgate currently offers a core list of 222 species, comprising about 70% flowers and 30% grasses and sedges. All are specifically suited to certain site conditions for increased biodiversity; these are not the non-native garden plants used in a designer 'meadow'. Many wildflower companies use garden- or agricultural-origin seed, which does not have the diversity of the true species; Emorsgate takes great care to maintain the genetic variation of the wild plants. The businesses coming into this market now focus on easy wins,' notes Mr MacIntyre.
Denne historien er fra February 21, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 21, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
