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Growing, planting and creating a wildflower lawn
and how to grow a mini Haymeadow.
Over the years we have lost many of our British traditional wildflower and hay meadows, remember the poppies and cornflowers and the butterflies and birds they attracted. Although the planting of motorway verges and banks with grass and wildflowers is helping, also making motorway driving more interesting and enjoyable, its no longer easy to find flowering hay meadows to enjoy in the countryside. The white daisy like flowers with yellow centers you can see on the motorway verges, are Oxeye daisies, easy to grow and self seeding in the right soil. Suttons seed shop linked from my gardeners online shop, supply Oxeye daisy and other wildflower seeds.
Its easy to create and grow a wildflower lawn or mini meadow in your own garden. Wildlife of all kinds will appreciate your effort and visit your wild lawn, Human visitors to your garden too, especially older folk who can still remember the poppy fields and cornflowers and have chewed a stem of wild grass will reminisce about those days. Young kids who have never rolled around in wild grass will simply love it. A wildflower lawn is low maintenance requiring cutting only about twice a year (more about that later) and is also very beautiful when in full flower.
What is a wild lawn or mini wildflower meadow.
A hay meadow was an area of grassland that was grown for hay to feed the farm livestock over winter. The grass was cut for hay in July and August, by then the wildflowers and grasses would have shed there seeds to reproduce the following seasons display of wild flowers, the cows were then allowed back into the freshly cut meadow to graze through until early spring. In severe winters most farmers housed the herd and fed them with the hay.
How to grow a wildflower lawn and create a mini meadow.
A wild lawn is not as neat and tidy as a chemical lawn and its not immediately obvious that you are creating something beautiful, so if you are worried about your neighbors or family thinking you have lost the plot or neglecting your lawn, you might want to fence off the area you are going to let go wild. The best and cheapest way is to erect a simple rustic fence of half posts set on round posts. "What are you growing there?" chemical lawn man will ask, instead of "what's the old bugger doing now ?"
Traditional wildflower meadows can contain up to 100 species of flowering plants. Some competing with the grass ( this is why they have been killed of with the use of chemicals on chemical dependant farms) and some germinated in the small open areas churned up by animal hoofs.
The grasses and wildflowers you can seed (or encourage naturally over a longer period) will depend on the type of soil in your garden some prefer clay some sandy, some saturated and some dry but all prefer poor soil. I have listed wildflowers and the types of soil including acid soil, sandy soil,loam, clay sole and saturated soil and on the banks of wildlife ponds further down this page. If you are planning to create a wildflower mini meadow in your garden or let an existing lawn go wild the most important thing to do is to stop using fertilisers NOW to reduce the fertility of the soil.
No need to remove the existing turf to create a wild lawn or meadow. Most domestic lawn grasses are not that vigorous, but competition by the grass can be reduced by sowing Yellow Rattle seed into the lawn. Its parasitic on the roots of grasses, and once established will reduce the growth of the grass by about 50%. Yellow Rattle grows in all established wildflower meadows and is sown between August and December as it needs a period of cold to germinate.
How to Introduce wild meadow flowers into your lawn.
Three ways to get wild meadow flowers growing in your wild lawn:
Letting a wildflower lawn happen naturally,
Transplanting wildflowers into a lawn,
Sowing wildflower seeds directly in your lawn.
1 Let it happen naturally. It will take a long time especially in a lawn that is isolated from a wild meadow. If you are lucky enough to have a wild meadow fairly near to you, wind and birds will speed this up.
If you choose this method, leaving it to nature to seed your wild flower lawn allowing your lawn to turn into a wild lawn naturally, the first wildflowers to appear will be the low rosette type lawn weeds, including daisies, plantains and cat's ear and the creeping plants such as selfheal and the speedwells. As your wild lawn or meadow establishes, the height of the grass will increase and the taller plants and wild meadow flowers will appear and the daisies and other low growing wild flowers will gradually disappear in some areas of the wild lawn. Airborne seeds and seeds delivered by birds will slowly begin to build up turning your lawn into a beautiful wildflower meadow. With this method you won't need to be concerned with the type of soil you have. Natural selection will be at work in your lawn.
2 Transplanting wildflowers into a lawn. its time consuming and expensive but will speed up the appearance of wildflowers in your lawn.
Transplanting meadow wildflowers from pots or plugs directly into your wild lawn is the quickest way to establish wildflowers in your wild lawn and can be bought online as pot plants or as plugs, and planted direct into the wild lawn. Container-grown wild flowers can be planted out in autumn to establish over winter or planted in early spring before the grass has grown to tall. The wild lawn/wild flower meadow area needs to be mown short before planting, making sure to remove the cut grass to your compost heap. Try to mix the species and plant the wildflower plants informally , as if seed had blown in on the breeze. Depending on your budget plant as many as you can for a quick effect, but remember they will reseed in the Autumn after flowering, eventually covering the whole wild flower lawn. You will need to choose plants that will grow in the type of soil in your garden
3 Sowing wildflower seeds into a lawn, Its a bit slower than transplanting ready-grown plants, but achieves the best results in the long run and is relatively cheap.
Sowing wild meadow flowers into your lawn is a bit slower than transplanting but is a lot cheaper and produces the best results in the long run. Grass preparation is fairly easy. You will need to cut the grass very short and remove the clippings from the lawn. Then firmly rake the area removing as much of the thatch as possible to create open areas where seeds can get to the soil and germinate.
Sow in autumn using a wild flower mix that suits your type of soil, at about1.5g per square metre. Then rake the area over after sowing to help the seed into the soil.As the seedlings start to show in the late autumn or spring, you will need to give your new wild flower lawn a mow, setting the blade fairly high to about 3in, this allows light to reach the emerging seedlings. In the following seasons your wild flower lawn should be left to grow to its natural height, to allow the flowers to naturally spread there seeds. More about this next.
How to Maintain a wildflower meadow and lawn
In the second and following seasons allow your wild flower lawn or meadow to grow to its full height and go to seed. Think about the cycle a wildflower meadow goes through !! Spring germination, late spring and summer flowering. late summer producing seed, Autumn spreading those seeds, dying off in Winter and then in Springtime starting all over again. What a treat you are in for. A wild flower meadow would be cut for hay in July or August. A wild flower lawn is best cut in August in warm dry weather, after flowering and when the wild flowers have gone to seed. When you cut the hay meadow in late July/early August, try to leave a strip of about 2ft around the edge to provide nectar for the butterflies.
Leave the Grass and wild flowers on the ground for about a week, this will allow the seeds that haven't yet dropped to dry out fall into the soil.When you rake up and remove the meadow grass and wild flowers from your lawn to the compost heap, try not to carry it over a lawn or area of garden you want to keep clear off weeds. The hay will still be full of wild flower and weed seeds. One more thing, remember I told you the cows are let back into the meadow to graze once the hay had been harvested, well unless you can borrow a cow you will need to mow your wild flower lawn now and then through winter if the weather allows, not forgetting to collect the clipping the cows would have chewed on.
If the wildflower lawn extends into trees or a wildlife hedge, grass banks and stony areas etc. the greater the diversity of the grasses and wildflowers you will be able to grow. I have included a guide to the types of Soil and the wild meadow flowers that will grow in them on this page.
Wildflowers and the types of soil they grow in, listed here soil wildflowers grow in
How to remove Rye grass from a lawn
When converting an existing lawn you will need to remove all trace of rye grass as it compete vigorously with your wild flowers. Selective lawn Weed killers wont work.The only options are to meticulously dig the rye grass out, making sure none is left to spread its way back into your wildflower lawn. Or remove the complete lawn and resow with a hay meadow mix of seeds.
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