Through the meadows

Beautiful piece of nature in the middle of Wellen. With highlander cattle in the meadows

Near the centre of Wellen there are two nature reserves of Limburgs Landschap vzw, which are managed with the help of the volunteers of 't Bokje. In the south that is the Broekbeemd and in the north, between Wellen and Alken, the Grote Beemd.Their name already gives it away, it can be wet there. Beemd' stands for 'a hayfield in a stream valley'. Where it is too wet, a boardwalk shows you the way, so that you can continue to enjoy the beautiful spring flowers and hayfields.Here you walk through the Broekbeemd.Source: limburgs-landschap.be/grote-beemd

The Broekbeemd nature reserve is located almost in the centre of Wellen. When Limburgs Landschap vzw started there together with the local association ’t Bokje, many areas were very overgrown and/or planted with poplars. In 1992, the first Limburg grazing project with Scottish highland cattle started there, which has made the vegetation more varied. The poplar stands are gradually being transformed into a mosaic landscape with damp rough areas, native forests, small landscape elements and chalk marsh. This chalk marsh (or alkaline lowland peat) is very rare: the total surface area in Flanders is only about 10 hectares. And the Broekbeemd includes a beautiful part of it, with many rare plant and animal species such as the toad rush, scaled sedge and the slender damselfly. So it is worth protecting! The water from the numerous sources in the area is collected in about ten pools and then flows to the old bed of the Herk. It goes without saying that all this pure water attracts interesting species. One of the pools was even specially created for the great crested newt.