It looks amazing and well worth the effort and anticipation. We are pleased with our wild flower patches too - they are buzzing with activity on this lovely sunny day. Well done!
I may have to encroach on the lawn with the wildflower patch a foot or so a year and hope no one notices.
haha, thats my kind of thinking!
It looks brilliant Matt, and I bet there are all sorts of insects in there. In terms of managing it when you do cut it just leave the the trimmings there for a few days to let any seeds fall out before gathering it up. Unless you are sowing new seed there next year, Id also collect a decent amount of the poppy seed and store it to sow next year, as they dont come back on undisturbed soil very well (for me anwyay)
Thanks all. @Jellyfire, self-seeding of the cornfield annuals is something I have been wondering about. I know that they are supposed to need disturbed soil, but what counts as "disturbed"? Could I rough up the area with a rake, say, in early autumn? I would love for the poppies and cornflowers to come back, but also part of this process is supposed to be them acting as "nursery cover" for the perennials that are also in the mix. In any case, it will be interesting to see it evolve. One thing I will say is that poppies and cornflowers had no trouble reseeding in our front garden last year, and I didn't really disturb that soil - although there is a lot more bare earth there.
Not sure about the raking, but could work I guess, worth a try at least, the perennials are usually pretty robust so I doubt would do much harm.
I presume poppies need lots of light to germinate and a lack of competition to establish which is why they need cultivated soil, so I suppose it will depend on how much sward you have next spring.
I absolutely love poppies so I'll be keeping a beady eye out for if you have any success
@matt_fender - I'm revisiting this old thread of yours because I remembered you planted native hedging along a fenceline a couple of years ago. I wanted to check in with how it has been doing and whether you've found any issues with pruning it where you can't reach the back etc? Has it pushed the fence over as it has grown?
We've now moved house and there is conifer hedging on both boundaries and within our garden. I really want to get rid of it and replace with native hedging but we do have boundary considerations on one side in particular and probably need some kind of fencing there, at least on that side. I was just curious how you'd found it had progressed? It's been a dream of mine to have native hedging and we're finally in a garden that could take it but I'm not sure how well it'll work along a fence.
I have had a few issues with mine, but nothing to do with knocking over the fence. The hedge has been growing extremely well, but I made a couple of rookie errors initially, which was to include some elder and quite a bit of dog rose. Both lovely plants, but both really took off and overwhelmed the rest of the hedge to such an extent that, about a month ago, I took the decision to remove all of both. The rose in particular had been starving the rest of the hedge for light, and so the rest of the hedge had been growing upwards fast in search of light and, after removal of rose and elder, I have a lot of bare stems at the base. The good news is that I think it will recover quickly - I have been watering well, and with the light that is getting in now, green shoots and leaves are already showing on most stems and I think things will fill in fairly well. The interesting point here is how little most of this stuff grows in the absence of light, so I really don't think you'll get major issues with growth at the back of the hedge against a fence, for example. Also fairly easy to prune in winter when the leaves are gone. I would just avoid elder as that is the one species that could have threatened the fence, with incredibly rapid growth and serious trunk/branch development in a very short time. If there are any bare spots in the fence come the end of this year, I will plant more short, bare-root hawthorn to fill in.
Incidentally, whilst doing this cut back about a month ago I found three bird's nests (already abandoned for the season, thankfully), so the hedge was already doing a great job on attracting wildlife in just its third season!
I think patience is the answer. Some wildflowers don’t even flower in their first year, if they’re perennials and need time to establish. Try to avoid using anything but rainwater to water them with too, of you can. Sun is key. Yellow rattle is a good one to have in your mix, as it’s a ‘meadow maker’ plant which will suppress grass, allowing the wildflowers to not be outcompeted by it. Your good patch of flowers looks great, but I agree with you that the baked, cracked surface of the other area looks rather dry and inhospitable.
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It looks brilliant Matt, and I bet there are all sorts of insects in there. In terms of managing it when you do cut it just leave the the trimmings there for a few days to let any seeds fall out before gathering it up. Unless you are sowing new seed there next year, Id also collect a decent amount of the poppy seed and store it to sow next year, as they dont come back on undisturbed soil very well (for me anwyay)
I presume poppies need lots of light to germinate and a lack of competition to establish which is why they need cultivated soil, so I suppose it will depend on how much sward you have next spring.
I absolutely love poppies so I'll be keeping a beady eye out for if you have any success
We've now moved house and there is conifer hedging on both boundaries and within our garden. I really want to get rid of it and replace with native hedging but we do have boundary considerations on one side in particular and probably need some kind of fencing there, at least on that side. I was just curious how you'd found it had progressed? It's been a dream of mine to have native hedging and we're finally in a garden that could take it but I'm not sure how well it'll work along a fence.
Lucid
I have had a few issues with mine, but nothing to do with knocking over the fence. The hedge has been growing extremely well, but I made a couple of rookie errors initially, which was to include some elder and quite a bit of dog rose. Both lovely plants, but both really took off and overwhelmed the rest of the hedge to such an extent that, about a month ago, I took the decision to remove all of both. The rose in particular had been starving the rest of the hedge for light, and so the rest of the hedge had been growing upwards fast in search of light and, after removal of rose and elder, I have a lot of bare stems at the base. The good news is that I think it will recover quickly - I have been watering well, and with the light that is getting in now, green shoots and leaves are already showing on most stems and I think things will fill in fairly well. The interesting point here is how little most of this stuff grows in the absence of light, so I really don't think you'll get major issues with growth at the back of the hedge against a fence, for example. Also fairly easy to prune in winter when the leaves are gone. I would just avoid elder as that is the one species that could have threatened the fence, with incredibly rapid growth and serious trunk/branch development in a very short time. If there are any bare spots in the fence come the end of this year, I will plant more short, bare-root hawthorn to fill in.
Incidentally, whilst doing this cut back about a month ago I found three bird's nests (already abandoned for the season, thankfully), so the hedge was already doing a great job on attracting wildlife in just its third season!
Try to avoid using anything but rainwater to water them with too, of you can.
Sun is key.
Yellow rattle is a good one to have in your mix, as it’s a ‘meadow maker’ plant which will suppress grass, allowing the wildflowers to not be outcompeted by it.
Your good patch of flowers looks great, but I agree with you that the baked, cracked surface of the other area looks rather dry and inhospitable.