Wildflower Meadow Attempt

There does seem to be a misconception that wildflowers are somehow different to weeds. Weeds are just plants in the 'wrong' place. My late father, born in the 20s, was an arable farmer, he would say a rose bush in his cornfield was a weed. But that corn in the rose garden was also a weed.

Embrace the 'weeds' in your wildflower meadow. Nettles are a valuable food source for many butterflies (peacock, tortoiseshell etc). The beautiful cinnabar moth requires ragwort. Your local wildflowers/weeds will find their way to your patch, or you could harvest seeds in the locality as well as relying on bought in mixes.

You will need to reduce the fertility of the existing grass land. Yellow rattle will parasitize the grass and weaken it.

This will take time, it's a marathon not a sprint!

You are doing great though, keep up the good work!

Maybe don't take off the tarp until next March, then rake to create a lazy or stale bed, if that's what you want to do. By raking you awaken the dormant seeds bank. Do you rake every 10 days to kill off most of the seed bank or do you let the natural seed bank form part of your wild flower meadow. I wouldn't leave soil bare over the winter. Farmers aren't even allowed do that anymore.

All the turf cutting machine is is a motor moving wheels and a cutter set underneath. The cutter usually vibrates so it cuts better.

Probably everything you need to know.

In your case I'd consider cutting a nice thick turf so you are removing as much good topsoil as possible. Worth cutting the grass first.

I set wild flower seed Mid Sept last and it largely failed. But it could be this idiot, but I don't know what I did wrong.😔

When is the best time to sow the yellow rattle. I autumn sowed two years ago and completely failed.

When you say to hit with yellow rattle, you'd almost have to sow by pressing into soil with fingers bit by bit after year one ? There would be too many flowers etc to sow yellow rattle otherwise? I had this dilemma when tried introducing rattle last autumn into a small wildflower patch, trying to find bare patches of earth in between the flowers to press the rattle in. Took ages. Can't imagine doing in a big plot

Elderly Gentleman who looks after parts of our estate "Says "1.mow the lawn 2. collect the grass cuttings 3. spread the Wildflower Seeds 4. cover the seeds with the saved grass cuttings.

Grass cuttings are the harshest enemy of wild flowers.

The more you take away grass cuttings, the more wild flowers you'll have down the line. The less you do it, it will finish the show in a short few years.

There's lots of useful information about creating a wildflower meadow on Biodiversity Ireland's website:

I'm on year 4 of "wilding" the front lawn (roughly 20m x 4m) by sowing yellow rattle into the tightly cut and roughly raked existing lawn. The yellow rattle grew best in two spots where the vegetation had been killed by two round straw bales which I had left there over the summer (by accident, not design). Each year I cut it once late in the year (sept/oct), leave the hay on the ground for a week (or more) and then rake it off.

If I get around to it I run the lawnmower over it so it is really short when the spring bulbs (crocus, early tulips) emerge. Because it is the front garden I planted bulbs for a succession of colour interest in the spring (crocus, narcissi, tulips, iris, alliums).

The yellow rattle has bulked up/spread and is starting to flower now.

I collected the yellow rattle myself by using the Biodiversity Ireland website to find the closest patch of it to my house.

I will put a picture of his wildflower garden up here ad also what time of year sowed the seeds

A petrol strimmer. It takes about 20 minutes.

The only advantage of the turf cutter is that it removes the fertile top spoil if you rotovate it then you are improving the soil unless you then remove some of it. Rotovating is fine but then you need to keep on top of it with a decent dutch hoe which will be a lot of work. If you keep rotovating then you keep bringing weed seeds to the surface.

Maybe its obvious but, out of interest, what is the thinking about not leaving soil bare over winter?

I need to remove nettles and grass, there are lots of nettles in the garden, big patches in other parts of the hedgerow. The entire place would be nettles, creeping buttercup and grass if I didn't challenge it. The person who takes a ride-on mower over the greater part of the grass area is offended by the fact that it is a sheen of gold at the moment, keeps giving me tips on how to get rid of weeds 😁

Is that the Urlingford day? I misread it as June and was sorry I had missed it. Might make an effort to go since its July, and if I can round up a carful 😀.

The main reason for green cover is to stop nutrient leaching and co2 escaping into the atmosphere.

Nitrogen I realise gives you leaf, not flowers. That's the only nutrient that you might want to deplete. Then I'm a farmer.

I got a reply within 48 hours so apparently it varies depending on time of year etc. I haven't bought the seeds yet but what they suggested was dead on.

But if you don't have leaf ,you won't have flours because the plant gets it's energy from sunlight on leaves then it can generate flowers. Where does a cherry blossom get all it's flowers in Spring, from energy stored up the season before from all the leaves it had out all that season. A flour is only one part of the lifecycle of a plant by trying to artificially generate wildflowers by removing top soil etc as well as degrading your garden you are also interfering with nature. It's just another artificial surface like a golf course green

Thats logical but totally wrong thinking. The grass is what will take any available nitrogen and use it to grow leaves. We don't want grass competing with the wild flowers so we don't want any more than the minimum amount of nitrogen. I've never put any fertilizer on my lawn in 25 years (before that it was field) and it is still far to fertile to make a good wildflower meadow.

Some wild flowers have particular nutrient requirements but most of all they want a lack of competition. Primulas like a lot of Potash and often do well around the edge of an old bonfire. The bonfire helping reduce the competition from grass and other plants and providing a boost of potash.

Apologies for slightly highjacking the thread but it's a bit relevant. Planted native wildflower mix last year on a patch that neighbours can see..was hoping to encourage them to do similar by making it looks really pretty and we'll(it's facing shared carpark). Last year not so bad, but this year it's dominated by wild carrot(yarrow?) and ox eye daisies and they're outcompeting each other and too tall,flopping over etc. In October am considering digging it all ,. removing and plants roots etc and planting a low growing nativ mix that will look a bit tidier. Not going to use weedkiller so if just dig rotavate(as we did last year) and plant loads of yellow rattle and low growing mix,.that should work? In short term I want to remove a half the wild yarrow to give other species a chance to grow this summer-do I need to dig it up or just cut to the base?