Spring wildflower meadow
Discussion
We have a patch of grass at the front of the house and quite like the idea of sowing a stack of seeds and just letting the grass and flowers fight it out for a couple of months once it warms up, as long as we keep the edges trimmed it should still look pretty tidy. Ideally I guess we would cut the grass very short and sow some quick-growing seeds straight away, and then just leave it.
Are there any pre-packed seed mixes that would be suitable for this, and when should we do it? West Scotland so mid-Feb is still very cold, maybe more towards April?
Are there any pre-packed seed mixes that would be suitable for this, and when should we do it? West Scotland so mid-Feb is still very cold, maybe more towards April?
There are various pre-mixed seeds available, some better than others.
The meadows I've done, I've designed site specific mixes myself. That way you get a better mix of plants to match the site conditions and will also better suit what you want from the meadow.
What ever you go for, its definitely worth seeking out good quality seeds over some of the cheap mixes on the market. They can be poor quality and have a low germination rate and be inconsistent with the mix, often contain lots of grass seed.
Worth considering sticking to plants that are native if you can, or at least contain beneficial plants and not those that could be a future problem/invasive.
The meadows I've done, I've designed site specific mixes myself. That way you get a better mix of plants to match the site conditions and will also better suit what you want from the meadow.
What ever you go for, its definitely worth seeking out good quality seeds over some of the cheap mixes on the market. They can be poor quality and have a low germination rate and be inconsistent with the mix, often contain lots of grass seed.
Worth considering sticking to plants that are native if you can, or at least contain beneficial plants and not those that could be a future problem/invasive.
ScotHill said:
So just a 'wildflower seed mix', and make sure I get one that's suitable for our climate? Can manage that. 
As mentioned above, grass will often out compete wildflowers, its worth doing some ground prep to give the meadow plants a chance. A bit of work at the beginning will give a much better final result. Just scattering seeds will likely be unsuccessful.You might have more success by digging up the grass /rotavating it - then planting a variety of hardy grasses / different lengths textures & colours - then sow the wild flower mix. Get a decent quality of seed - not a packet from a garden centre - do a bit of research and go direct to a seed specialist best of luck.
best of luck.Mr Pointy said:
The grass will win.
Knowing our lawn I'm sure it's the moss that will win, but if we get a couple of daisies we'll be happy.Have an electric rake (not quite a scarifier) so will give it a good doing before sowing then just see what happens. Have some soil borders so will probably drop some seeds in there too.
ScotHill said:
W.. quite like the idea of sowing a stack of seeds and just letting the grass and flowers fight it out for a couple of months once it warms up, as long as we keep the edges trimmed it should still look pretty tidy.
I did this to a patch of my back garden last year (using pre-packaged 'widlflower seed' mix). I enjoyed it - and the bees, butterflies and hummingbird hawk moths and other insects it attracted - but to be fair it didn't look at all tidy. Heights of the various flowers were all over the place, and some were dying back as others were coming through (benefit being that there was something happening all through to late autumn), but it did look properly 'wild'.Not sure the neighbours would have been chuffed if I'd done it at the front.
ETA: I dug the ground over first, mind you - not just sowing onto an existing lawn.
Edited by Equus on Monday 20th February 19:07
We have a patch at the side of the house that we tried the permanent meadow approach on - it looked great the first year, then just a patch of rough grass the next. Almost nothing came back up.
What we now do is just run a rotavator over it during the first dry spell of spring and sow another bag of seed mix (something with lots of cornfield annuals I seem to remember). There's then a great display for minimal effort - i strim it all down once the first frost has killed everything off so it looks tidy over winter.
Ours is surrounded by grass paths so the only maintenance is to keep the surrounding area mown as normal, the sharp contrast between the wildflowers and the mown grass keeps things looking good.
What we now do is just run a rotavator over it during the first dry spell of spring and sow another bag of seed mix (something with lots of cornfield annuals I seem to remember). There's then a great display for minimal effort - i strim it all down once the first frost has killed everything off so it looks tidy over winter.
Ours is surrounded by grass paths so the only maintenance is to keep the surrounding area mown as normal, the sharp contrast between the wildflowers and the mown grass keeps things looking good.
ScotHill said:
So just a 'wildflower seed mix', and make sure I get one that's suitable for our climate? Can manage that.
It can be made as complex as you like.Some people elaborate the task of letting some wild flowers, AKA weeds, grow to the point of being able to write books about it.
You can do anything from just chucking seed down and not mowing it, through to micro-managing it stem by stem.
What we did was:
Rip as much grass off as we could be bothered to in an hour or two.
Scatter seeds.
Mow around it.
This worked OK.
Less mowing to do, a few nice flowers, bees, somewhere for the adder to hide....
An enhancement is to cheat slightly, grow some 'nice' 'wild' plants in pots or trays and insert them into your 'wild' area here and there.
You can even buy plug plants for the purpose I think.
montecristo said:
I've done a couple of these. Grass takes some fighting, but poppies, buttercups, daisies, aliums seem quite able to come through.
Yellow rattle can be great for keeping grass down, especially if you have the patience to wait for a year or two.
Was just about to mention Yellow Rattle. I've heard that you just plant that for the first year to weaken the grass. Yellow rattle can be great for keeping grass down, especially if you have the patience to wait for a year or two.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/64224/rhinanthus-min...
The next year you sew a mix of seeds.
OutInTheShed said:
It can be made as complex as you like.
Some people elaborate the task of letting some wild flowers, AKA weeds, grow to the point of being able to write books about it.
You can do anything from just chucking seed down and not mowing it, through to micro-managing it stem by stem.
What we did was:
Rip as much grass off as we could be bothered to in an hour or two.
Scatter seeds.
Mow around it.
This worked OK.
Less mowing to do, a few nice flowers, bees, somewhere for the adder to hide....
An enhancement is to cheat slightly, grow some 'nice' 'wild' plants in pots or trays and insert them into your 'wild' area here and there.
You can even buy plug plants for the purpose I think.
That sounds a good planSome people elaborate the task of letting some wild flowers, AKA weeds, grow to the point of being able to write books about it.
You can do anything from just chucking seed down and not mowing it, through to micro-managing it stem by stem.
What we did was:
Rip as much grass off as we could be bothered to in an hour or two.
Scatter seeds.
Mow around it.
This worked OK.
Less mowing to do, a few nice flowers, bees, somewhere for the adder to hide....
An enhancement is to cheat slightly, grow some 'nice' 'wild' plants in pots or trays and insert them into your 'wild' area here and there.
You can even buy plug plants for the purpose I think.
Quite tempted, now is the time!
With no effort on my part as I didn't cut it at all during 'No Mow May' last summer, our back lawn looked like this by the first week of June. All those flowers (I've no idea what they are apart from the foxglove) were already resident. This year I wanted to add to the varieties but O/H wants 'orderliness': borders, somewhere to sit, shrubs and so on. This therefore is likely to its one and only appearance:
I planted up some wide wildflower borders last winter after very comprehensively digging up and removing all the old grass, it looked sensational last summer, pretty much 100% wildflowers, the trouble is now after everything died back (and I removed all the cuttings as you're supposed to) what I'm left with look worryingly like grass.
I suppose I won't know until everything starts growing again whether what I've got is grass or wildflower.
Here's how it looked back in the summer...
I suppose I won't know until everything starts growing again whether what I've got is grass or wildflower.
Here's how it looked back in the summer...
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