Whet happens if you just have a wildflower garden?

Addle

We have a big garden and aren’t good at looking after it, though we have good intentions.
We use the patio a lot.
Can we just have wildflowers everywhere and forget about borders, shrubs and lawn?
Would love a haven for birds and bees.

Apiarist

Addle wrote: »

We have a big garden and aren’t good at looking after it, though we have good intentions.
We use the patio a lot.
Can we just have wildflowers everywhere and forget about borders, shrubs and lawn?

Do you have wildflowers everywhere already? If you do, then all is fine. Wildflowers (generally) thrive in poor soils where they have less competition with grasses and tall plants like nettles.

But it is likely that your garden soil is quite rich. In that case, it will support good grass growth and there will be sections of nettles, horseradish, brambles and maybe gorse. So what you end up is not a wildflower meadow, but a nice waist deep tangle of weeds. It is not a bad thing either, since you won't enjoy walking into nettles, small wildlife can live undisturbed there. But it will look like an abandoned building site.

Addle

Unfortunately, it’s mostly the latter.
We have a very big garden and have only looked after a small bit of it.
Need to sort out the rest.

Lumen

Addle wrote: »

We have a very big garden and have only looked after a small bit of it.

How big is very big?

Addle

3/4 of an acre just going wild.
We were just going to fence it off but it will have to be dealt with at some stage.

Lumen

You could plant a mixed woodland and then by the time you come back to it you'll have mature trees which you can thin out to make something nice.

Addle

Thanks for the suggestion.
Would I be able plant wildflowers amongst the trees?
Have our very own private bluebell wood?

magicbastarder

i did, on a much smaller scale than you.
not a good time of the year to start, you would want to be planting trees in later winter/early spring typically, when you can buy them bare root. a very rough rule of thumb would be planting them at the rate of 1,000 per acre, so if you wanted to cover a quarter acre you'd need 250 trees - but you'd get them for about €1 each.

Addle

Thanks. We’ll consider it, though trees seem very permanent.

Lumen

Addle wrote: »

Thanks. We’ll consider it, though trees seem very permanent.

Not at all! They're much quicker to chop down than grow. :pac:

Frogeye

I have a large site ( 2 acres) too. We built the house on it in the last 2 years. Didn’t tend the grass while we were building and it turn into dock plants and nettles. We put in a patio and kerbs earlier in the year and the guy in back to set the lawn later this month. I have about 400/500 m²planted with 4-5 foot tall trees of various types. I’m putting a 400m² pprox area of perennial wild flowers as well. Planning on getting the top soil scraped of and then sowing the wild flower seeds. We had top soil scrapped off an area last year for the septic tank. Nothing grew on it until the beginning of this year. Even then it was limited so it should work but I have heard poor enough reports on the long term outcome of wildflower meadows. If they are not maintained they turn in to weeds. I would go for a bigger area otherwise.

I don’t want to spend my life cutting grass either so I’m going to get a drone for the good part of the lawn, and borrow/eventually buy a ride on for another area that I am going to try and cut less regularly but still keep as grass. I’m getting a run for chickens for another part and they’ll control the grass.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I would advise anybody with the notion of a work free wild flower meadow to research it fully, get only native varieties that will suit the location and have a look at the strict maintenance requirements to keep it in shape. It is neither as easy nor as maintenance free as many imagine. For a larger area I'd concur with the idea of a small woodland setting, underplanted with woodland flowers

Frogeye

Kenya Mammoth Transgressor wrote: »

I would advise anybody with the notion of a work free wild flower meadow to research it fully, get only native varieties that will suit the location and have a look at the strict maintenance requirements to keep it in shape. It is neither as easy nor as maintenance free as many imagine. For a larger area I'd concur with the idea of a small woodland setting, underplanted with woodland flowers

this is the reason I haven't gone for a much larger area on my site. I'm not sure how it will turn out long term.

Regards the woodland area, I have 4-6 foot trees about 1.5m apart, I have't actually planted anything under them, just assumed that in the few years the trees will eventually block the light and stop most of the weeds. But is there such a thing as a wild flower meadow for under trees? Would they need the same unfertile soil or different are there different requirements? any ideas for keeping the weeds down?

magicbastarder

you'd get a different type of flower growing in woodland; ones that have to deal with the canopy of the woodland, so often flower and set seed before the canopy completely closes over them in late spring/early summer.
bluebells, wild garlic, wood anemone, etc.

magicbastarder

here's a list of the sort of flowers you'd find in a woodland:

http://www.irishwildflowers.ie/habitats/woods.html

harr

Sister tried it on half an acre a few years back and it was a disaster, she removed a lair of top soil and planted a a heap of wild flowers. Some flowers grew but so did the nettles, grass, thistle and thorns...horrible to look at and very unkept looking and certainly not the look she was going for.
She eventually cleared the area and planted a good few fruit tress, strawberries, gooseberry and similar.
10 years later and she has a nice little orchard and in fact a lot more wild flowers growing now than before.

spurious

You could get a goat or sheep for the grass.

magicbastarder

harr wrote: »

Sister tried it on half an acre a few years back and it was a disaster, she removed a lair of top soil and planted a a heap of wild flowers. Some flowers grew but so did the nettles, grass, thistle and thorns...horrible to look at and very unkept looking and certainly not the look she was going for.
She eventually cleared the area and planted a good few fruit tress, strawberries, gooseberry and similar.
10 years later and she has a nice little orchard and in fact a lot more wild flowers growing now than before.

how often did she cut it?
also, it's worth planting yellow rattle in a meadow. it's partly parasitic, and will help weaken grass.

gozunda

spurious wrote: »

You could get a goat or sheep for the grass.

This ^^

http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/wgrazing.htm

harr

magicbastarder wrote: »

how often did she cut it?
also, it's worth planting yellow rattle in a meadow. it's partly parasitic, and will help weaken grass.

I don’t think she did, I think She taught she didn’t have to , I know the brother in law went at it with a strimmer a few times

Lumen

spurious wrote: »

You could get a goat or sheep for the grass.

Goats are browsers, not grazers.

ogsjw

victor8600 wrote: »

Do you have wildflowers everywhere already? If you do, then all is fine. Wildflowers (generally) thrive in poor soils where they have less competition with grasses and tall plants like nettles.

But it is likely that your garden soil is quite rich. In that case, it will support good grass growth and there will be sections of nettles, horseradish, brambles and maybe gorse. So what you end up is not a wildflower meadow, but a nice waist deep tangle of weeds. It is not a bad thing either, since you won't enjoy walking into nettles, small wildlife can live undisturbed there. But it will look like an abandoned building site.

This is probably the single best piece of advice I've ever seen on this website.

Graces7

Lumen wrote: »

Goats are browsers, not grazers.

Actually goats are pretty omnivorous when it comes to vegetation. I had one for nine years and she kept grass and weeds etc down very efficiently. Loved nettles and docks . She grazed as much as she browsed. I had heard what you say but it did not work out rigidly.

OP, a pet sheep would do well too.. i had in the later years 2 Jacobs for the wool i spun. Great fun too

Pretzill

I have almost an acre as wild meadow. Included here are trees which have self seeded and a small orchard we planted ourselves. We also mow a path through the orchard and down the length of the meadow (about five foot wide) - it's naturally wild elsewhere with buttercup, meadowsweet, birdfoot trefoil, yellow flag, Marsh Marigold, cuckoo flower, Angelica, orchid and lots of others all native and put there by themselves. Full of butterflies, insects and bees and very little maintenance.