How we manage the meadows
We mow each meadow once or twice during the summer. If our goal is to diversify the vegetation of the meadow, we will remove the clippings. However, if the main goal is to keep the landscape open, we will leave the clippings in the meadow. In some meadows, we use grazing animals such as sheep and cows to help with landscape management.
In the meadows that are most valuable in terms of flora or cultural history, we also use manual methods such as a scythe.
In landscape fields, we cultivate native cereal varieties, sunflowers, lacy phacelia or peas. You may pick the flowers and peas for your own use.
Guidelines for the management of meadows
The management of meadows and agricultural areas is guided by the city’s nature management policy, which we are currently updating. Once the City Board has approved the new policy, we will also update the more detailed meadow management guidelines.
Plans and policies
- Nature management policy (pdf, not accessible, in Finnish)
- Plans for public areas in Map Service (In Finnish)(Link leads to external service)
- Management and development plans in Map Service (In Finnish)(Link leads to external service)
- Nature management guidelines – meadows and landscape fields (pdf, not accessible, in Finnish)
Frequently asked questions about meadows
Yes they could, and this is what we are doing in the case of suitable small lawn areas all the time: we leave dry grass areas and areas around trees uncut to allow clover and common yarrow to bloom. Larger lawn areas are turned into meadows more deliberately.
Lawns have also been turned into meadows by the OmaStadi project. (Link leads to external service)
We take animals into account by mowing the meadows outside the bird nesting season. Furthermore, we start the mowing in the middle of the meadow and work our way towards the edges to allow animals plenty of time to get out of the way.
You may pick a bunch of flowers in a meadow for your own use, subject to the restrictions below.
Flowers must not be picked:
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In valuable meadows or meadows in conservation areas because they are home to particularly valuable plant species
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In meadows in developed parks
See the locations of valuable meadows in the map service. (Link leads to external service)