Not sure if I have time to try and germinate seeds in pots to then plant out in a number of weeks?
Looks like I will have to try that, OR a combination of that and plug plants. Struggling to find big enough plug plants at the moment (yellow rattle might be an idea to start with and then work around that).
It's frustrating isn't it? Another flowerless meadow year soon slips by . . .
I am hoping the foxgloves at least might survive the slugs and flower. I think the ones in the "meadow" now might be ones I planted out during my foxglove experiment last summer.
I sowed mine a few weeks ago using a mix of commercial packs of "meadow" seeds combined with most of my annual seeds in my seed box and all mixed with sand to help with distribution. The forecast rain failed so I set the sprinkler on it but since then we've had enough showers to get it going.
The area is slowly turning green but I suspect they're mostly the usual suspects - grass, field bindweed, creeping buttercup, malva and the like that were already there. Can't walk on it to go and check in case I crush a goody. I shall be patient then but sow some more seeds in plug trays in case they're needed.
Foxgloves are fab in both wild gardens and more organised borders.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
When I bought my house in SW France there had been a donkey in the small paddock. He used to pace up and down in the bit in front of his shelter so the ground was bare of grass. I broke up the top soil with a rake and 3 pronged thingy and sowed some packets of seed marked for meadows and pollinators, French seed. A lot of the seed came up but it was mostly hardy annuals such as calendulas and even tender annuals such as cosmos and zinnias.
Lovely. I guess the weather helps. It is still what I would consider the "end of winter" up here.
I see Yellow rattlesnake plug plants are out of stock everywhere I have looked. As I side note I have seen on the descriptions that they need full sun. I would be trying to grow them in what will be partial sun when the leaves grow back on the trees.
If anyone has any suggestions for wildflower plug plants for partial sun, please let me know and I will try those.
The only identifiable wild flower that is growing in my "meadow" are what will hopefully turn out to be foxglove flowers. Though I will be back later with another couple of photos of other stuff I cannot identify (I am currently only an expert at identifying willowherb, sycamore seedlings and the lovely but dreadful Himalayan balsan)
Seems I made a big cock up with the top soil . . .before then it had all gone bare and yellow with rooted wild grass which I raked off and then replaced with said top soil - not knowing that would not help wildflowers. Now I seem to have facilitated a mostly long green grass area and sycamore seedling farm.
I've read that Red Campion is good for shade, I've found this easy to germinate from seed.
I have 2 small perennial wild flower meadows that are developing, in my front garden I stripped back the grass and sowed a specific meadow mix from Emorsgate Seeds (I have no affiliation, but they are very reputable) back in 2019. I'd say only last summer did it start to look like more than just a patch of long grass. My understanding is because the perennials take a good few years to establish and flower from seed.
Initially I found the slow development frustrating, but now I have learnt to appreciate that forming a meadow is a really long-term endeavour and actually how it evolves differently each year is fascinating and a major part of the experience.
The other mini wild flower meadow I'm developing is in the back garden. For this I took a different approach. I stripped back the grass, but only sowed Yellow Rattle (this was done in the Autumn of 2020). And since then i've been growing my own choice of perennials from seed (field scabious, knapweed, oxe-eye daisy etc) and then planting them in using a bulb planter once they were big enough. I did try buying some plugs and planting those directly, but pretty much none survived – I now realise I should have grown them on into 9cm pots before planting out. An expensive mistake!
The key is getting Yellow Rattle established, once this is going, the grass is significantly reduced and it's possible to plant into it. It needs a period of cold weather to trigger germination, so there's no point sowing it until the autumn.
I'm not especially hung up on the idea of whether the meadow areas I have are "true" wildflower meadows, so i've planted bulbs like Camassia, Tulips and Alliums. Combined with native Narcissus pseudonarcissus and snake's head fritillaries, this gives a good number of successive months of flowering interest before the perennials get going.
And in that vain, I'm also considering experimenting with putting ornamental perennials in such as Echinacea and Achillea and seeing how they do, just for fun really.
We scattered a wild seed mix for shade under our medlar tree, also shaded by neighbouring hedge and walnut.
I can’t remember the full mix but it did include red campion, foxgloves, honesty, geum urbanam, Herb Robert, white nettles and hedge garlic, We also have some buttercups growing, but they may be self seeded from elsewhere in the garden.
Dont worry about the top soil, shade loving wildflowers will include those which naturally grow alongside or under woodland canopies and so used to richer soils ( from leaf fall)
Wildflowers will germinate if and when the conditions are just right (location and weather) so you won’t necessarily see everything appearing in the first season. Some may not appear for a year or two or maybe never.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
Like much in gardening patience is the key to success. Creating a wildflower meadow from garden lawn in my opinion is a process that takes many years, starting with driving the nutrient level down over a number of seasons by tightly mowing the area and removing all arising's. I'm on my fourth year of establishing my meadow and i'd say only now am i finally starting to see the results I want. I estimate i'm 50% of where i want to be but its getting there. I didn't want to go down the route of spraying and tilling the earth as i am after a gradual and more natural meadow establishment as i feel this gives the best results.
Secondly you need to decide what you actually want; Are you after pretty annuals like Bizzie Lizzie's example, or a perennial herbaceous wildflower meadow? Both are different. If its the former then just spray off your lawn, rotivate and throw down 2-4gm/m2 of annual wildflower mix at the appropriate time and you'll get a nice display. If you're after the latter then revert to point one and start the slow process of preparing the soil. You can actually have both as annuals are often recommended as a 'nurse mix' in the first year of perennial meadow establishment (they help suppress grass).
Yellow Rattle will be out of stock now until the autumn - this is the time to buy and sow it as the seed will be fresh and viable. Even better, and as Bede has suggested on another post, try to harvest a small amount locally and broadcast the seed asap at the end of the summer.
Fresh topsoil won't help, as others have suggested, as its too nutrient rich so best get that idea out of your mind, although it can be appreciated why this would possibly be considered a good idea at the time.
My thoughts would be mow the area hard for the rest of the year and start again in the autumn with a defined plan. My thoughts +1 are annuals are a bit of a waste of time unless its pure aesthetics you're after. If you're trying to really aid nature then a perennial meadow is what you want.
I planted my seedlings in a scrape in the front lawn, they're not growing fast, but they're growing! Unlike my poppies and cornflowers, which didn't get started at all. And then you get road builders who just heavily overseed the banks, and it works beautifully! Even the council do better than me with their verges! 😫😄
I would say that (apart from dealing with the grass) watering is key. Many people think you can just put down seed and leave it. Continuous watering through the spring and early summer should make for a food display (unless you are genuinely getting rain every few days).
Posts
Looks like I will have to try that, OR a combination of that and plug plants. Struggling to find big enough plug plants at the moment (yellow rattle might be an idea to start with and then work around that).
It's frustrating isn't it? Another flowerless meadow year soon slips by . . .
I am hoping the foxgloves at least might survive the slugs and flower. I think the ones in the "meadow" now might be ones I planted out during my foxglove experiment last summer.
The area is slowly turning green but I suspect they're mostly the usual suspects - grass, field bindweed, creeping buttercup, malva and the like that were already there. Can't walk on it to go and check in case I crush a goody. I shall be patient then but sow some more seeds in plug trays in case they're needed.
Foxgloves are fab in both wild gardens and more organised borders.
I see Yellow rattlesnake plug plants are out of stock everywhere I have looked.
As I side note I have seen on the descriptions that they need full sun. I would be trying to grow them in what will be partial sun when the leaves grow back on the trees.
If anyone has any suggestions for wildflower plug plants for partial sun, please let me know and I will try those.
The only identifiable wild flower that is growing in my "meadow" are what will hopefully turn out to be foxglove flowers. Though I will be back later with another couple of photos of other stuff I cannot identify (I am currently only an expert at identifying willowherb, sycamore seedlings and the lovely but dreadful Himalayan balsan)
Seems I made a big cock up with the top soil . . .before then it had all gone bare and yellow with rooted wild grass which I raked off and then replaced with said top soil - not knowing that would not help wildflowers.
Now I seem to have facilitated a mostly long green grass area and sycamore seedling farm.
I have 2 small perennial wild flower meadows that are developing, in my front garden I stripped back the grass and sowed a specific meadow mix from Emorsgate Seeds (I have no affiliation, but they are very reputable) back in 2019. I'd say only last summer did it start to look like more than just a patch of long grass. My understanding is because the perennials take a good few years to establish and flower from seed.
Initially I found the slow development frustrating, but now I have learnt to appreciate that forming a meadow is a really long-term endeavour and actually how it evolves differently each year is fascinating and a major part of the experience.
The other mini wild flower meadow I'm developing is in the back garden. For this I took a different approach. I stripped back the grass, but only sowed Yellow Rattle (this was done in the Autumn of 2020). And since then i've been growing my own choice of perennials from seed (field scabious, knapweed, oxe-eye daisy etc) and then planting them in using a bulb planter once they were big enough. I did try buying some plugs and planting those directly, but pretty much none survived – I now realise I should have grown them on into 9cm pots before planting out. An expensive mistake!
The key is getting Yellow Rattle established, once this is going, the grass is significantly reduced and it's possible to plant into it. It needs a period of cold weather to trigger germination, so there's no point sowing it until the autumn.
I'm not especially hung up on the idea of whether the meadow areas I have are "true" wildflower meadows, so i've planted bulbs like Camassia, Tulips and Alliums. Combined with native Narcissus pseudonarcissus and snake's head fritillaries, this gives a good number of successive months of flowering interest before the perennials get going.
And in that vain, I'm also considering experimenting with putting ornamental perennials in such as Echinacea and Achillea and seeing how they do, just for fun really.
I can’t remember the full mix but it did include red campion, foxgloves, honesty, geum urbanam, Herb Robert, white nettles and hedge garlic, We also have some buttercups growing, but they may be self seeded from elsewhere in the garden.
Dont worry about the top soil, shade loving wildflowers will include those which naturally grow alongside or under woodland canopies and so used to richer soils ( from leaf fall)
Wildflowers will germinate if and when the conditions are just right (location and weather) so you won’t necessarily see everything appearing in the first season. Some may not appear for a year or two or maybe never.
East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
Secondly you need to decide what you actually want; Are you after pretty annuals like Bizzie Lizzie's example, or a perennial herbaceous wildflower meadow? Both are different. If its the former then just spray off your lawn, rotivate and throw down 2-4gm/m2 of annual wildflower mix at the appropriate time and you'll get a nice display. If you're after the latter then revert to point one and start the slow process of preparing the soil. You can actually have both as annuals are often recommended as a 'nurse mix' in the first year of perennial meadow establishment (they help suppress grass).
Yellow Rattle will be out of stock now until the autumn - this is the time to buy and sow it as the seed will be fresh and viable. Even better, and as Bede has suggested on another post, try to harvest a small amount locally and broadcast the seed asap at the end of the summer.
Fresh topsoil won't help, as others have suggested, as its too nutrient rich so best get that idea out of your mind, although it can be appreciated why this would possibly be considered a good idea at the time.
My thoughts would be mow the area hard for the rest of the year and start again in the autumn with a defined plan. My thoughts +1 are annuals are a bit of a waste of time unless its pure aesthetics you're after. If you're trying to really aid nature then a perennial meadow is what you want.
Unlike my poppies and cornflowers, which didn't get started at all.
And then you get road builders who just heavily overseed the banks, and it works beautifully! Even the council do better than me with their verges! 😫😄