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Wild Flowers

Lawn

Native spring flowering bulbs can be planted in bold drifts in an existing close-mown lawn and left to naturalise. Throw the bulbs underarm to the general area to be planted and then plant each bulb where it falls, thus avoiding straight lines and unnatural patterns. They should generally be planted at a depth equal to three or four times their size. Although anathema to a tidy gardener leave the flowers to set seed and the leaves to die back naturally – do not cut them off since they produce food which is stored in the bulb for next year’s flowers. To simplify mowing, plant the bulbs in bold sweeps so that the grass can be left unmown until June.

Meadow

Choose a site in full sun. In order to create a flower meadow in a well cultivated garden the fertility of the soil needs to be reduced drastically giving the flowers a fair chance to succeed against grasses which thrive best in fertile soils.

There are two ways of reducing soil fertility:

The first is to strip the top 50-100mm of topsoil (if the soil is poor thin and sandy or limy then conditions will already be good for wild flowers). Leave the ground fallow for a while to allow any perennial weeds to grow so that you can weed them out or cover the area with black polythene to exclude the light. The meadow will not have a chance if full of dock, creeping thistle or couch grass.

The second way is easier but takes longer. Close mow the lawn for several seasons using a grass box, thus reducing the soil fertility.

Flowering lawn or wildlife meadow?

Seeding

Having established which native wildflowers will be happy in your type of soil buy your seed mix from a specialist seed grower. Allow about 4 grams of seed for each square metre as it has been proved that meadows establish better if the seed is sown thinly. As some wildflowers only germinate when exposed to light there is no need to cover with soil. Simply tread or roll in lightly keeping the birds at bay for a while. You can sow in spring or early autumn, as some flowers need periods of cold before they germinate. The fine grasses will germinate easily but the flowers will take longer to appear – be patient!

Maintenance

If your meadow is sown in the spring you could keep it to a height of between 5 and 10 centimetres for the first year so helping the wildflowers to become established. The following year simply let it grow and flower. Enjoy the flowers through the summer but remember that it is most important to cut in late summer when they have finished flowering. Use an old fashioned scythe or otherwise a strimmer cutting at 5 – 10 centimetres. When the hay is dry rake it all off again reducing the soil fertility and encourage the wildflowers.

Enjoy watching the meadow grow into an important wildlife attraction, with frogs hunting in the grass, some butterflies laying their eggs, grasshoppers calling and finches eating the seeds. All this and flowers too.