On Tue, 16 Jun 2015 21:21:32 +0100, Vir Campestris wrote:

On 16/06/2015 18:44, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
Just taken some visitors keen on seeing some of our wild flowers to a usually very good
site for a variety of species, including several nice orchdis, to find everything well
behind this year. Instead of saying "you should have been here last week", it was a
question of saying "you should have come next week or even the week after".

pricks up ears A gardener who knows about wild orchids? Perhaps you
can help.

Last summer - our first in this house - I noticed an odd looking plant
in the grass, and as it was at the edge I let it grow to see what would
happen. It turned out to be a bee orchid. This years I've got my eye in,
and I've found a couple of dozen. They're just coming in to flower.

They've obviously survived at least 15 years of just being mowed - but
what's the best way to make them flourish?

Mow the grass in the autumn after they've flowered and seeded, so that the grass doesn't
get too thick and matted over the years. Otherwise, leave them alone and enjoy them! And
don't let any fertiliser get near their area of grass.

Orchids are very long-lived plants,taking several years to reach maturity and then living
sometimes for decades, retaining the ability to withstand years of mowing/grazing. I had a
similar experience to you, moving to a house with a lawn which had been mown for years. In
the first summer, it was too wet to mow for a couple of weeks and several Northern Marsh
Orchids appeared.