How to Create a Wildflower Meadow
Wildflower meadows are vibrant places, full of colour, movement and life. They can be created in window boxes, flower borders, lawns or fields, from tiny scales to enormous acerages, and are guaranteed to bring joy no matter their size! The huge diversity in the scale of a meadow is matched by the diversity in types of meadow that exist, these include annual meadows (full of bright colours), 100% flower meadows (with no grasses) and more naturalistic meadows (that contain around 80% grasses). The best start you can give to your meadow is to look at the conditions that you're creating your meadow in (the space, soil type, dry/dampness,shade/sunlight) and select the best seed mix to suit, rather than looking at the pictures and picking something you like the look of, With wildflowers you must always be driven by the environment that you're establishing them in:
- Very fertile soil - if you're trying to create a patch of wildflowers in an area of rich topsoil (or in a window box that contains compost), then you'd be better working with a 'pictorial meadow'. These seed mixes often contain non-native species that are better suited to more fertile conditions than our own native species, which are very quickly and easily out-competed by thuggish grasses and 'weeds' in fertile soils.
- Spaces that need to have aesthetic appeal - if your meadow is to be located somewhere that requires it to first and foremost look nice, then an annual meadow might be for you! Annual meadows contain high numbers of very bright species such as poppy, cornflower and corn marigold, which many people associate with meadows, and certainly tick the box when it comes to making spaces look pretty!
Native perennial meadow mixes are those based on natural meadows, and are supplied for a variety of different conditions, from shady spots (woodland mixes), damp spots (wet meadows mixes) to acid soils (Highland seed mix), the common theme being that the soil isn't particularly fertile (i.e. it's not a deep dark colour with a nice crumbly texture, and/or hasn't received any fertiliser treatment in the past 12-24 months).
Once you've selected your seed mix, strangely the next best step is not to order the seeds, but to prepare your ground! Having wildflower seeds sitting round waiting to be sown can lead to unsuccessful sowings, particularly when they're stored somewhere in the house (with central heating and artificial lighting playing havoc with their internal clocks!), so it's best to wait until you're just about ready to sow. Ground preparation can be a bit of a timely process when it comes to meadow establishment as what you need to achieve is a sterile seed bed. That is, a seed bed that exists without the presence of any other seeds in it. When soil is turned over or freshly exposed to sunlight, and seeds that are already in it will germinate and will often out compete your wildflower seeds. So, before sowing any seeds, its important to expose your soil to sunlight (by digging over part of a flower bed, turf stripping a piece of lawn or filling a window box with soil). Next, water the soil and wait for any seeds to germinate (this can take two to four weeks) before weeding out any emerging seedlings.
Now you're finally ready to sow, although wildflower seeds can be sown at any point during the growing season, the best times to sow are either early spring (after the last frosts) or early-mid Autumn (this is in fact the ONLY time to sow wildflower seed mixes that contain the species yellow rattle, as its seeds need to freeze and defrost a couple of times before they will germinate). To sow your seeds, it can be a good idea to mix them with some sand or dry soil, as the sowing rate is so low (around 3g per m2!) and this will enable you to scatter them more evenly. Simply scatter the seed onto the soil and lightly press them in to ensure good seed-soil contact - no need to cover them with extra soil or rake over the top though.
That's it - all you need to do now is sit back and wait for your seedlings germinate and grow!
Resources
Seed sources: IHere in Scotland, Scotia seeds are great for native, Scottish grown seed mixes as well as yellow rattle and scythes! Urban pollinator mix works well in built up environments (containing a small amount of annuals for that year 1 aesthetic appeal!), where as Mavisbank is a good mix for more rural areas.
Scotia also supplies some really good advice notes on things like sowing into existing grassland and how to use yellow rattle.
Plug plants - Naturescape offer a great service where you can buy 50 plugs, selecting 10 species to suit your needs from a list of 40 species. They also have a great booklet to help you decide which to select.
Books
· John Lewis-Stempel - Meadowlands
· Dave Goulson – The Garden Jungle
Online Resouces
· Buglife
· Plantlife
Managing grasslands to loads of wildflower meadow resources
· NatureScot
Consultations – I offer wildflower meadow and wildlife gardening consultations for individuals and community groups from £30, get in touch with me at sally@seilich.co.uk to book.