If at first you don’t succeed (or maybe your seeds suck) …
So, our first go at a miniature wildflower meadow didn’t quite come off as we hoped! We had high hopes for this little wilding project as we’d seen it work in my mum’s garden and, to a lesser extent in a corner of our back lawn. Suitably encouraged, we took the ambitious step of turning our small front lawn — yes, the front lawn that all the neighbours get to see and that has spent the last many years as a finely manicured green carpet — into a miniature meadow.
Sadly (as it turned out), our decision to take on this crazy scheme, took place in March time which was, according to the various seed packets we’d invested in, the correct time to sow but turned out to be less than optimal. More on when may have been a more suitable time below. In the meantime I’ll describe our efforts and the less than amazing results and explain why we’re trying again this year.
Looking for advice on growing a wildflower meadow at home can be a slightly frustrating activity. Show me any garden, wildlife and lifestyle magazine and I will find you a headline appealing to you to grow wildflowers that will provide pollen, seeds and shelter for insects and birds especially — all good so far. Turn to the page that features a examples for you to follow, however, and you may be daunted by the pictures of field-size back gardens and paddocks, expertly sown to provide swathes of lovely flowers. You may wonder how on earth growing such an acreage of meadow could possibly be applied to your little patch of land.
Further unhelpful advice to simply let your lawn grow long and see what comes up will, if followed, lead to a brief display of lovely grass heads with maybe a bit of clover and/or buttercups that is rapidly turned to a tangled green mat when squashed down by wind, rain and marauding cats — that’s my experience anyhow. I’m not against growing grass long, by the way, as it will increase the diversity of plants, insects and birds in your garden. However, if , like me, you want more of a meadow than a mush, you’ll be pleased to know that success should be very achievable, even on the smallest patch of land — just start the process in autumn rather than spring.
Equipment requirements are as basic as they can be when dealing with a lawn: a mower and garden rake will do nicely. Those without a mower could borrow one or instead use shears on a small patch of land. We also invested in a lawn scarifier (essentially an electric rake) as an upgrade on the rake. A packet or few of a wildflower seed mix will provide a good start-up meadow but if, like us, you want to control your flower mix, then buy a few more packets of maybe field poppies, wild cornflower, red clover, birdfoot trefoil and field marigold (we’ve even mixed in some French marigold seeds for long-lasting, late-summer colour -being careful to avoid double-flower versions which are difficult for bees to access to get the nectar and pollen). If you’re lucky and have a friend or family member with a wildflower garden, you could scrounge some of the millions of seeds that form after the flowering.
The method is as rudimentary as the equipment list and you can get started any time from mid-September: cut or mow the lawn as short as you can; rake up or scarify all the resultant vegetation (resisting the temptation to let it rot down and feed the lawn — this will only make your grass grow more vigorously); sow the flower seeds thinly across the lawn and then walk around the lawn to gently embed the seeds — I’m reliably informed that this will mimic the action of wild animals in a natural meadow!
Having completed this task last March, I can report some success with a fine late showing of birdfoot trefoil and red clover and there was a smattering of other interesting-looking flowers that we hadn’t sown, including forget-me-nots, feverfew, field chamomile, vetch and buttercups. However, the vast majority of seeds didn’t germinate and, although we had many admiring comments from neighbours who recognised our efforts to help wildlife, we were a little disappointed with results overall.
Theories as to why the meadow didn’t take off as hoped abound in my tiny brain including: the well-established grass didn’t allow some of the less-vigorous seeds to take root; the March sowing was followed by several weeks of limited rainfall and plenty of Sun — good for our vitamin D levels but tough on the germination or the previous owners of our bungalow may have used lawn weed control which is still present and inhibited growth.
So, undaunted, we’re having another go and hoping that the autumn sowing will save the day and we’ll get a lovely mini-meadow next summer.
