The snake’s head fritillaries are early this year, rising up fast while it was still mild, but now witnessing the severity of these last few days of chill winds and freeze. Oblivious to the changeable weather and dancing on wire thin stems on the bank behind the house, they hover amongst an assembly of bulbs to celebrate this moment. Small flowered narcissus and Anemone blanda, Leucojum aestivum, Tulipa clusiana and Star of Bethlehem. I love them in the mix and it is a joyous reflection of change, but once you have seen Fritillaria meleagris naturalised in a wild meadow, you cannot help but think that their subtlety is better when they are in the company of other natives. Celandine, the first cowslips and the fresh new grass of the season.
Last autumn I took more ground so that the fritillaries could have their own place. Two projects on different time scales, but both in damper places that are more akin to the water meadows where you see them in the wild. The first, the more immediate, is on the spring-laden banks that feed the ditch, where a couple of years ago I moved the fence to give field back to this crease of wild wetland.
We planted a thousand bulbs here last autumn, in the knowledge that the results would be quick and transformative for buying time with bought in bulbs. We lifted an envelope of turf, cutting with a spade on three sides and folding it back. About five bulbs were winkled into the base of each hole at about six inches deep so that the bulbs are out of reach of the mice. This spring you can see our man made spacing, but if we have found them a niche they will begin to seed and find where they want to be. Their delicate chequering and the angled crook of their necks is easier to read as the only bulbs of this particular moment. They are preceded by snowdrops and winter aconite and will be followed by Camassia leichtlinii as the grass pushes up later in the month.
The second new domain for them is the slower of the two. It was inspired by a visit to Clattinger Meadows near Malmesbury, one of the few flood plain meadows in the country that have never been improved by drainage or fertiliser and where Fritillaria meleagris has naturalised. The site is a triple SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and seed from the site is available in limited amounts when it becomes available through the seed merchants. I bought a kilo from Emorsgate Seeds and sowed it in the damp margins around the pond last autumn with images of the fritillaries growing with wild burnet and meadow rue firmly placing me in the future. The fritillaries may well take time to emerge in the mix, if indeed they like where they have been put, for one meadow is as much a part of its place as the components that make it particular.
With my long-term head on and inspired by neighbours that gave me a tray of snake’s head seedlings last spring, I will save our own seed this year and begin a cycle of sowing annually to produce our own seedlings for the areas around the pond. A fast track of imported bulbs feels out of place when the point of the pond is for it to be reflective. Somewhere that of anywhere here will tell us which way it wants to go once we’ve given it the helping hand it needs to begin the journey.
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 2 April 2022
