We managed to keep horses on the meadow until early November before the floods came. This enabled us to keep the grass down to a good height over the winter, so that plenty of light could get in early in the spring to encourage the new seeds to grow. One thing that did have a good year in our locality was sloes. We don't have hedges in the meadow, but the photo shows sloes on a blackthorn bush in a hedge in our adjacent field. They provide plenty of food for all sorts of birds in the autumn and winter, and of course, steep them in gin to make sloe gin!