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Cornflowers
CharleyD
Posts: 440
I'm looking forward to growing cornflowers this year and will be making a new plot in our back lawn. Should I kill off the grass with weed killer before I start digging the plot? I can't decide whether to let the grass grow amongst the cornflowers (is this even an option?) or aim to have the plot as weed/grass free as possible.
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Thanks Edd. I'm certainly not afraid of some good old hard digging
. My indecision though is whether to leave the grass to grow with the cornflowers in a meadow type section or to try to eradicate the grass first. I'll be starting to dig in a couple of weeks' time so I can get the seeds sewn at the beginning of March.
Cornflowers don't grow in established grass/meadows,
they'll grow in cultivated soil with annual grasses.
In the sticks near Peterborough
former weeds of cornfields Edd, not hay meadows
In established grass you either cut the grass and the cornflowers or the grass swamps the cornflowers. Either way, no chance
In the sticks near Peterborough
Ok, so I'm going to define the area, spray weedkiller on it to get rid of most of the existing lawn, dig it over, hoe it, dig some compost in and sew the seeds.
I think what Nutcutlet means is that they grow best in areas where they can grow to full height and seed before being cut down, like Cornfields. This means that the seed lays on bare soil and has a good chance of germination.
If they are planted on a site where they have to compete with grass and twice annual cutting, they'd have no chance.
Edd - the clue is in the name - cornflower - cornfields are cultivated annually and wheat/barley/oats are sown and grow up straight and tall, leaving bare earth around them which is where the cornflowers and other annuals of cultivated soil grow.
This picture of wheat stubble shows how much bare soil there is in a cornfield
The bare soil between the wheat is where the annual cornfield flowers such as cornflowers and poppies grow.
Meadow flowers are usually perennials and grow amongst grass which spreads out and makes a close-growing mat with no bare soil between the grass - they have to be much tougher than the flowers that grow in the cornfields.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I grew them last year in my 'wild' patch. The soil was cleared of old weeds and grasses where it had been neglected, dug over a few times and I simply threw on a mixture of seeds - they came up a treat, flowered well into October and were a magnet for bees. Currently I've left all the old growth laying over the soil for hibernation purposes and in March i'll clear the patch up again, give it a quick turn and throw on some more seeds.
Was well worth the original effort in digging and turning the soil - will be easy to look after from here on out with just some light digging and the results were delightful, the soil was so compacted previously that I think things would have struggled to germinate well.
Good luck
Thanks Jonesk; that's very encouraging and it sounds like the plan I had in my mind. Did you do any weeding while the cornflowers were growing?
I pulled out the odd dandelion but pretty much just left them to it - wasn't the tidiest display and a few began to flop forwards away from the beech hedge behind it (probably not the most suitable growing conditions for them) but they grew and flowered beautifully and really were a magnet for wildlife which was my intention for this area so i'll be growing them again this year
Sounds idyllic and perfect and exactly what I had in mind. Thanks
and good luck with yours this year.