Author Topic: Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?  (Read 3178 times)

Pancho

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Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?
« on: 13 March, 2016, 11:43:21 am »
I have too much green in my garden. Lots of lawn and lots of evergreens.

I also have a barren mound (which I think is spoil from some building work in the distant past).

So I'm toying with the idea of turning it into a wildflower patch (rather than the current bramble and nettle patch) using buckets of seeds from these guys

https://www.wildflowerlawnsandmeadows.com

There's a lot of info on the web but I've never seen it done in the flesh. Has anyone been down this garden path?

EDIT: the reason I'm playing internet on this glorious sunny day is that I've been banned from gardening, cycling, and other high risk activities on account of having to go on hol soon.

Re: Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?
« Reply #1 on: 13 March, 2016, 12:14:37 pm »
At our previous house, after cutting down some Laylandii that provided a home for very little wildlife we made one of the previously bare bits of earth into wild flowers and grass (with a bed beyond it). It took a year or so to get properly established, and a bit of weeding to stop the teasels and nettles taking over. It attracted lots of butterflies and as a bonus only needed cut a couple of times a year. I think it needs enough space to have a sweep of colour and a mix of flower varieties for different times of year - a bit like a flower-bed really.

Re: Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?
« Reply #2 on: 13 March, 2016, 12:47:15 pm »
I'll be interested to follow this.  We have a utility area at the far end of the garden.  It was an impenetrable thicket when we moved in.  It now has a potting shed, compost heaps, a couple of piles of bricks and stones, and sundry shrubs and trees.  E put some grass seed down and has now followed that with wild-flower seeds.   It's not a huge area, but should be large enough to make a display.

Re: Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?
« Reply #3 on: 13 March, 2016, 02:33:48 pm »
Like most jobs in gardening its all down to the preparation, the more time spent preparing should result in less work later
They are more work than most people imagine, RHS trained people excluded.
Ian, maybe you could divert your rides so that we could see it

Re: Anyone tried wildflower meadows/lawns/patches?
« Reply #4 on: 13 March, 2016, 05:25:28 pm »
A difficulty in getting a wildflower meadow established is that usually soil fertility is too high; traditional meadows are usually fairly nutrient poor as nutrients get removed annually by haycuts; farmyard manure (FYM) is then often applied to add fertility so that a viable haycrop is sustained. The typical haymeadow (which has seen massive decline due to agricultural intensification, about 97% loss since WW2 ) grows on unimproved or semi-improved soils, lawns etc would fall in category highly improved unless over many years there`s been no fertiliser input and grass cuttings regularly removed

With higher nutrient content soils aggressive nutrient hungry grasses will tend to outcompete the wild flowers, hence swamping them out. It`s only by controlling these aggressive grass species that a wildflower meadow will become established.
....after the `tarte de pommes`, and  fortified by a couple of shots of limoncellos,  I flew up the Col de Bavella whilst thunderstorms rolled around the peaks above