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Wildflower mix and suppliers

strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 767
in Wildlife gardening
Interested to hear suggestions and experience on wild flower mixes and suppliers please. I've not been overly impressed with some of the mixes I've used previously, and ended up bulking them with my own seeds which isn't ideal due to amount.

It'll be for very light shade (8 hours of sun per day in summer), next to hedge rows, clay-ish heavy soil that can get a bit wet due to stream nearby. Thanks!

Posts

  • ObelixxObelixx Vendée, Western FrancePosts: 24,318
    There have been some trials on Beechgrove and they did factsheets until this year so you can probably go to their section on the BBC website and find notes.  Carol has also grown a few mixes this year and reported on those and that info should be there too in some form or other.

    We grew a wild flower patch this year but simply by stopping mowing and seeing what grew on what used to be the site of a now demolished barn in the middle of the plot.  We had a few wild orchids, lots of mallow and achillea and all sorts of different yellow daisy type flowers plus purple clover, "lawn" daisies and the usual suspects.

    We had far more swallows, swifts and house martins this year and nightjars but no bats.   Will do the same next year but sow some annual cornflowers and so on and insert them as plugs to get more blues.
    "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 767
    Thanks @Obelixx , that's useful to know. I've done the "leave it and see" before but wasn't too happy with the results - because of the surroundings, I get a lot of foxglove, clover and things at the weedy end of the spectrum. I'll go dig around on the website, I remember Monty doing a section on wild mixes last year too but he didn't name any specific suppliers etc (naturally). I've googled a bit but can't find the kind of first year flowering, annual, all flower mix I'm looking for...
  • ObelixxObelixx Vendée, Western FrancePosts: 24,318
    Chiltern do wildflower seed mixes, both annual and perennial.

    Plant World do a wildflower and a corn meadow mix.

    Both companies online and I've had good results from their seeds.
    "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
  • rachelQrtJHBjbrachelQrtJHBjb South BucksPosts: 682
    I've had good results using Pictorial Meadows' annual mixes.

  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 767
    Thanks @Obelixx @rachelQrtJHBjb , I'll check those suggestions this week, and get ordering.
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