Lawn to Wild Flowers

NewBoy2

I want to change a part of my lawn to a PERMANENT area for wild flowers

Not this current fad for chucking some seeds about for the birds to eat

? Which flowers do I use and how do I give them the best chance of becoming PERMANENT

Advice please friends

 

pansyface

Which type of wildflower meadow are you hoping to develop? There are two main styles

 

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=436

 

NewBoy2

I will read this and come back pansy

Landlubber

yes, I would like to do that too..... checking online.....

nutcutlet

Apart from Yellow Rattle, scattering seed in grass is very unreliable

bookmonster

Read up on which are most suitable for your soil type, cut the grass short and get some plugs. Loads of useful websites out htere.

 

LauraSquirrel

Plugs are probably your best bet, Naturescape have a good selection and are reasonably priced. I have a wild flower area planted from plugs and every year I just cut everything back around March time and it grows back again every year and soon turns into a wild jungle! Mine is purely plants rather than grass as well though and it grows about 2ft+ tall so probably not the look you're going for

NewBoy2

The wild flowers grew well and now I think I need to cut them down and let them go back to the soil.......Naturally

? Am i doing right friends

Guernsey Donkey2

Wait until the flowers have seeded before cutting down.  We have scythed some of ours today, then leaving the cuttings for a week or so, turning and then collecting them up. You can mow or strim but be careful not to injure any wildlife like hedgehogs @NewBoy2 . It is advised not to leave the cuttings in place to rot down, you will be enriching the soil and wild flowers prefer poor soil to grow in. We are planning to get a farmer to graze his animals on the area, before the spring, but is not a necessity.

NewBoy2

Thanks GD2

The area is only 8 foot by 3foot.

The plants have seeds ........should I wait until they have burst or pop them and spread them about and then remove the stems and leaves ?.

New Bed in Front Garden

I have a new area 8 x 2 foot which I want to add English Wild Flowers

Suttons do some but I am looking for the "Real Thing " so any suppliers you can suggest

I will be changing the rest of the garden later in 2020

Guernsey Donkey2

I commend you for your efforts @NewBoy2 - I would let the seed pots/heads pop naturally as some may not be mature just yet.

I received a Suttons catalogue today but wasn't impressed with their small selection on English Wild Flowers seeds.  However use them is a starter and in time the strongest plants will spread their seeds.

I ran a trial on seed sowing versus growing plants to plug size (3" plant pots) and found I had a far stronger and healthier patch that had been planted with plug plants (that is small plants that I had grown from seed).  However not everyone has the room for this and scattering a packet of seeds is far easier than sowing seeds in trays, transferring the seedlings to individual pots etc.

You can see some pictures of my small wild flower patches on previous posts here.