What is the problem with yellow rattle?
Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor) is a parasitic plant that can help to restrict grass growth. It can be oversown into an existing grass area, and it will start to feed off the plant roots, meaning that the grasses become less dominant, allowing wildflowers to establish more easily. Yellow Rattle helps keep more dominant grasses in check by attaching to and drawing nutrients from their root systems, which in turn gives less pioneering wildflowers more opportunity to gain a foothold and thrive.If your lawn is dominated by grasses, Yellow Rattle can help introduce more wildflowers by reducing grass density. However, it’s less effective in lawns that are regularly fertilised or where grass is particularly dense. Will Yellow Rattle spread to my entire garden? Yellow Rattle is unlikely to become invasive.The best way to manage yellow rattle is to mow or pull the plant before it blooms. If the plant blooms, mow it well before the flowers go to seed. Once the plant drops its seeds on the soil, it becomes very difficult to control.NB: Yellow Rattle can be poisonous to some livestock. Description: Yellow Rattle has yellow, tube-like flowers protruding from an inflated, green calyx, which appear May to August. It has serrated leaves with heavy, dark veins, which sprout opposite each other all the way up the stem.
Is yellow rattle rare?
Yellow rattle underwent a marked decline in Britain throughout the 20th century, thought to be a result of changes in farming practices. Yellow-rattle is an annual that thrives in grasslands, living a semi-parasitic life by feeding off the nutrients in the roots of nearby grasses.
How high does yellow rattle grow?
Plant description Yellow rattle can reach up to 50 cm tall, on a slender green stem. The leaves are green and lance-shaped with jagged edges and grow in pairs on opposite sides of the stem. Yellow rattle is one of these plants – while it is slightly toxic to horses, like most toxic plants, they avoid eating it.