In its sixth year Friends of the Lake District's recreated upland hay meadow at High Borrowdale has produced an amazing display of flowers - but you'll need to hurry to see it at its best before 20th July, when it'll be cut.

The land, at High Borrowdale, north east of Kendal, south of Shap, has a 4 ha site full of traditional upland hay meadow flowers - including ox eye daisy, red clover, yellow rattle, hawkbit, ragged robin, and meadowsweet, with melancholy thistle appearing for the first time this year. Not all the seeds have germinated yet - we are allowing a 20 year timescale to see what happens.

The landscape conservation charity bought High Borrowdale in 2002, to enhance the landscape, show good practice in managing the land for conservation, protect it from future inappropriate development, and allow free access to the public. It will be in the proposed new extended area of the Lake District National Park.

Upland hay meadows are a declining habitat and a priority habitat in the Cumbria Biodiversity Action Plan. When Friends of the Lake District first bought the land few people had trialled establishing upland hay meadows, so we were among the first to recreate a new one, and have been used as a model of good practice since by many organizations and partners.

The meadow was first seeded in 2005, with seed from a donor site at nearby Borrowbeck Meadows, thanks to a grant from Natural England and Wealth of Wildlife. The site has special management involving grazing stock until 1 April each year, and will be cut after 20 July, after which cows are allowed to graze to eat the remaining vegetation, which allows the hay meadow to regenerate next year.

Friends of the Lake District Policy Officer Jan Darrall said: ‘You are very welcome to go and enjoy our fantastic meadow. Please walk around the edges rather than over the meadow to avoid trampling, it, and don't pick the flowers as the farmer will be making hay from this shortly.'

High Borrowdale is free to visit and it can be accessed from the A6, 11 miles north east of Kendal. Grid reference: on English Lakes SE map (OL7) 569031. See http://www.fld.org.uk/high-borrowdale.html for a map.

For more photos see our Facebook page.

Our stunning hay meadow also featured on a piece on Border TV on 19 July, see Border TV piece here.

Friends of the Lake District bought High Borrowdale in 2002. Since then we have:
- repaired 5 km of dry stone walls
- repaired three buildings
- planted 10,000 new trees in two new sections of woodland
- created an upland hay meadow
- opened the whole site up to public access
- welcomed the public on to it for talks and schools visits
- held regular volunteer conservation days

To find out more or volunteer, please phone 01539 720788 or see our website www.fld.org.uk.