Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast. In this mini episode, we'll be going to meet Isabel Thompson, a ranger on the garden team at Stowe and Hannah Richards, the gardener on the team to learn more about the conservation and ecology of the grasslands within the Grecian Valley at Stowe. As I look up the length of the Grecian Valley, it's populated with the most beautiful, gentle browning grasses and fading away
wild flowers and hints of a beautiful season before us. But actually, what really dominates the view of this valley is the magnificent temple behind me. And the temple really gives it- gives the Grecian Valley its name because it's a temple inspired by Greek architecture and it was one of the first Greek inspired architectural features within a garden in England at the time. Hence the name the Grecian Valley. But standing next to me is the person who looks after, monitors, cares for this
wonderful valley, Isabel. And Isabel, you're a ranger on the team here at Stowe aren't you? And this is yours?
Yeah, I mean, I look after all the parkland here and any spaces with long grass.
What will be the kind of main tasks that you'd be looking to do throughout the season to create such a beautiful sword.
This hay meadow is already so well established. It needs very little management. You can fairly leave it to it. I've recently been establishing a new hay meadow. So the ground has been rotavated. It's been turned to make it flatter for the mowers. We've spread grass seed and recently we've taken an early hay crop from one area and spread it on the new area. So that will spread grass seeds and wild flower seeds and it will
really encourage it to come up with beautiful flowers. It's a bit of a quick shortcut really.
But doing that, you know, taking the grass that already exists in the landscape at Stowe and spreading it elsewhere almost guarantees you a consistent- a consistent seed bank, doesn't it? And a successful seed bank across the estate?
Yeah, it does. And we try and encourage the ecology here, make the place a bit more natural.
You say that really easily, you know, spaces with long grass. But actually it's the, it's the spaces with the long grass that hold such a rich population of insects, seeds for the birds. And you, you're doing a massive amount for the environment and the insects and birds around here, aren't you?
Yes, I mean, you have to start right at the very bottom. So by encouraging more grasses, more flowers, you're going to have a greater range of insects, more birds and more small mammals will come and eat those insects and then you get the bigger predators like the Birds Of Prey. There's a red kite lives just over there and he'll come over here to hunt.
Quite often when I'm mowing. The red kites will follow me because they know all the little creatures will come out of the grass and I'll just stop and watch them.
And we're standing here, you know, in the grass at the moment and it's beautiful. It's just going to seed some of it. So it's perfect for some of the smaller birds and I'm sure you'll probably get Goldfinches, you know, fluttering in and out of here and feeding off it, but surely you can't do all of this on your own.
No, I've got a fabulous team of volunteers who really help me out. So, quite often, if I'm out mowing in the tractor, they'll have smaller mowers out, they'll have strimmers and they'll be doing the bits behind me. And if we're felling trees, they're there to make sure none of the public get hurt and they'll tidy up the trees after me. So I couldn't do it without them, they're wonderful!
Looking at it. There must be kind of seven or eight acres of land here to look after and, you know, to translate this into your own garden at home to see if you can benefit. You know, there are elements that people could take away seeing the Grecian Valley at Stowe and apply in their own gardens at home?
Oh, absolutely. Yes. The best thing you can do is just leave the spots that choose a little corner of your garden for everyone that gets a bit of sun and just let it grow. If you get lots of nettles, maybe start cutting some of them back. But they've got, great value as well and just leave it be and you can sow wildflower seed mixes. You can get those quite easily. And yeah, it's a really, really easy, simple thing to do. And it's got such a huge benefit.
And from a gardener's point of view, you know, you can, as you say, you can leave nettles and, you know, as they, as they come to the end of the year, you know, everything has seeds on it for the birds. But I'm forever saying to people with perennial borders as well in your own garden. If you leave the perennial borders, everything goes to seed and it really helps birds get through that early stage of winter as well, doesn't it?
Yeah. Absolutely. And it's so easy for people to do. It's a bit less effort.
But here in the Grecian Valley, I mean, it's- we're standing on a really natural, predominantly native mix of grass and wild flowers and the population is- stunning. But actually, we're standing in a very manmade area of the garden because this is originally a Capability Brown design when he was head gardener here at Stowe, isn't it?
It was originally meant to be a lake but was never water tight.
No complaints from you. But I know Hannah, that it wasn't an easy job, was it?
No, it wasn't. They actually removed 23,500 cubic yards of soil from here and it was all done by hand. And I think you said earlier that nine wheelbarrows makes up a cubic yard. So that's about 210,000 wheelbarrows of soil that was removed from here. So Capability Brown was actually Lancelot Brown, but one of his great talents was revealing the capabilities of the landscape. So he earned himself the nickname Capability Brown.
Capability Brown actually lived here at Stowe and we have his marriage register here because he got married at Stowe in the church that sits just inside the Elysian fields and it's rumoured that his wife is buried here as well.
Thanks for listening to this week's National Trust mini episode. Join us next week to learn about indulgence and pleasure in store, sleeping wood to make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on itunes or your chosen podcast app. And please do let us know what you thought of this episode and share your suggestions for future topics on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We're @nationaltrust. You can also email us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk. Until then from me, Alan Power. Goodbye.