In June, my tiny yellow flowers add sunny splashes of colour to the landscape, but there are very few habitats left in the UK that I can live in!
There are very few Fen orchid colonies left in the UK, so these delicate yellow orchids are a pretty rare sight to see. Fen orchid needs wet areas with bare sand, short grasses and lots of calcium in the soil. This makes healthy sand dune slacks the perfect place for fen orchid, as they are often home to shallow pools year-round, and the sand and shells provide lots of calcium. These orchids are usually short, between up to 8cm tall, and the leaves are at the bottom of my stem while my pale yellow flowers bloom at the very top.
Fen orchid very nearly went extinct in the UK but a sand dune restoration project in South Wales helped to boost my numbers.
Look for fen orchid in some dune slacks in South Wales. They are very rare but easiest to spot in June when flowering.
Mowing or grazing in the dune slacks keeps vegetation low, giving the fen orchid room to grow. In some areas, Dynamic Dunescapes will also create new dune slacks, meaning there are more places for these orchids to live.