Ransoms Recreation Ground has been home to the Triangle Garden since the year 2000. For the first few years, while we focused on developing the community garden, the Rec was just a large expanse of amenity grass with a football pitch up one end.
In 2005, local amateur naturalist Bryce Hall, proposed we undertook a mass wildflower planting initiative on the damp central areas, where he’d found Creeping Buttercup and Lady’s Smock flowering. We persuaded the council to leave this central area long and only mow it once a year in September, to allow the wildflowers to set seed. As well as Meadow Cranesbill, Meadowsweet, Fox and Cubs, Snakeshead Fritilliaries, Ox Eye Daisies, Knapweed and Wild Chicory, we planted Yellow Rattle to weaken the aggressive grass growth in the new meadow. Some of the wildflowers established well, particularly in the damper spots and towards the edge of the meadow where our efforts had been concentrated. Unfortunately these outer areas fell prey to to overzealous mowing by the council’s contractors, as can be seen in aerial photos below taken in 2008, 2013 and 2018 respectively.
After several years of piecemeal wildflower planting efforts, we had managed to establish a few strong patches of Meadowsweet, scattered Meadow Cranesbill and plenty of Rosebay Willowherb which had come in uninvited, but provided good fodder for the local moth population. Fast forward to 2022 and unbeknown to us, a Rewilding Report commissioned by NHC indicated that our damp meadow would be a good place to increase biodiversity and so the council instructed contractors to scrape off the meadow and its topsoil and sow a standard wildflower mix in its place. Luckily our Meadowsweet survived, albeit weakened.
Undeterred we set to work creating a new meadow area in front of the Triangle Garden and extended it along the length of our forest garden. Here we planted loads of native wildflowers plug plants along with non-native bulbs including tall blue Camassias and Byzantine Gladioli to attract pollinators and create a spectacle. In the damp areas of the central meadow we planted Snakeshead Fritillaries (left) to replace the ones that had been removed.
In 2024 we held a community consultation to find out what people liked and disliked about the Rec and how they felt it could be improved. The results were clear – people wanted more flowers, more trees, more seating and more wildness – detailed results are here.
In 2025 we hatched a plan to transform the Rec into a biodiversity haven – under the project name of ‘Ransoms Meadows’. We secured £20K of National Lottery money to create a new swathe of wildflower meadow all along the cycleway (which is due to be created in September 2026) and a new woodland edge habitat in the central area of the existing long grass to provide homes and food for birds and insects. The trees we planted (supplied by Barcham Trees), are all wetland-tolerant species such as River Birch, Downy Birch, Common Alder, Dawn Redwood and Goat Willow, along with colourful-stemmed dogwoods and fruiting hedgerow species like damson and cherry plum, hazel and rowan, many donated by North Herts Council and Tilehouse Rotary. We have been keeping them alive during the long heatwaves, using an extra long hose and 2 watering cans.
To kickstart the biodiversity boost, and to give the council’s contractors a guide as to where not to mow, we’re also creating gabion bug towers (supplied by Wirefence). The gabions will be filled with broken brick, stone, tiles and wood to create bug havens dotted along the edge of the meadow areas. All the planting work so far has been done by people living in temporary accommodation at One YMCA’s Anderson House along with volunteers from local businesses such as Ransoms Naturals and Crane BSU, our Garden Clubs and our Growing Ability gardeners.
Gabions are incredibly versatile building blocks. We’ll also be using them as the bases of the new benches that will be installed by volunteers this summer. They will look a bit like the image on the right but with seat backs. The gabions will again be filled with habitat materials to encourage invertebrates and pollinators to make their homes. One of them has been commissioned by Crossroads Care as a special dementia bench – pic coming soon.
We’re so excited to see this project coming together – built by our community, for our community. The final instalment will be coming in September – the creation of our wetland wildflower meadow:
