Wild flowers

[Tigger1895]

I live in an an estate. Everyone keeps their lawn and garden impeccably. Recently people have started wild flower gardens outside their property on the grass pathway. To me it looks unkept and unsightly.
I feel if you want bees to feed why not encourage them into your own garden instead of making the pathway look like you can’t be bothered mowing that piece of grass. AIBU

Could you sprinkle some zoflora on some grey carpet remnants and carpet over the offending areas? Grey it up a bit.

@mustlovegin

We need more wildflowers. They’re lovely and the bees need them.

We are being invaded by bees and insects ATM probably due to the No Mow May initiative. We don't need any more. Please mow your lawns people!

@mustlovegin you are aware hay you would die I without all those pesky insects? Your food, your ‘gin’, your life would not exist without them. They keep you alive, fed and breathing. How ridiculous that you would be annoyed at their existence.

🤣🤣🤣🤣
Two semis near us "teamed up" and turned both their gardens into a wild meadow.
I was just saying to my DH how incredible it is. I'm jealous as ours is a paved drive with a hedge and a few pot plants 😖
We compensate by having an incredibly bee friendly garden.
we have primose and evergreen clematis to help them out of winter. Then a range of plants flowering throughout the summer and the back third is just wild.
We found have loads of different types of bees and birds, a few parakeets, a resident robin, we get a visiting heron?!?! hedgehogs, (no pond but) a seemingly resident frog!!!, dragonflies, and of course foxes!
I am amazed tbh as we are in London.

SAVE THE BEES!!!

....and, just to be clear, the same applies to the pathway. Actually, more so, because if people are responsible for it, then they have a right to make choices about it, and in my view, the choices they are making are prettier, more practical and less bother than grass.

Ha ha @SavoyCabbage please Don't give people like OP ideas!!! I absolutely LOVE wildflowers and seeing all the verges around us left for these beautiful plants to thrive has cheered me up no end. I hate sterile gardens and so do the wildlife. It's beautiful I really can't see how anyone could dislike it

We don't need any more

Errrrm yes we do - insect numbers are plummeting and if they go its curtains for us.

You sound like a real Hyacinth Bucket, OP.

I hate insects. They terrify me. My garden is full of wildflowers because I’m rewilding it. Even more bugs. It’s tough. I’m sucking it up.

@mustlovegin

We need more wildflowers. They’re lovely and the bees need them.

We are being invaded by bees and insects ATM probably due to the No Mow May initiative. We don't need any more. Please mow your lawns people!

@mustlovegin No we really aren't. There are so fewer bees than there used to be. We need bees and insects, they are absolutely vital to keeping everything alive. One day we won't have enough bees and everything will start to die. I genuinely think it's going to be the loss of pollinators that ends us.

You sound like the people in my town who moan about the garden in the centre of town (perennials) and the bee friendly garden in the park. The days of boring small annuals and everything looking perfect are long gone, so YABVVVVVU.

We need as many bees as possible. My neighbour has hives and I love to see the bees visiting my untidy garden and the dandelions in my lawn.

Here’s some unmown areas in my street ❤️

All these pictures are making me determined to have wildflower garden

So far I can’t grow anything because of the stupid soil. I’m going to have to get some pots with half decent soil in and then some bee bombs to encourage the wildflowers to grow

I'm going to be rewilding my front garden soon! It's only 6x4 feet but it's currently all stone chippings. Can't wait to see the bees and butterflies!

@Soubriquet

All these pictures are making me determined to have wildflower garden

So far I can’t grow anything because of the stupid soil. I’m going to have to get some pots with half decent soil in and then some bee bombs to encourage the wildflowers to grow

Wildflowers do better in poor soil, I'm reliably informed.

In our garden, it's actually a problem. The soil's too good.

Really? I’ll give it a go with my crappy soil first though

I tried to plant things like lavender and that failed so maybe wildflowers are the way to go

@mustlovegin

We need more wildflowers. They’re lovely and the bees need them.

We are being invaded by bees and insects ATM probably due to the No Mow May initiative. We don't need any more. Please mow your lawns people!

Good! you need to educate yourself.

@Soubriquet

All these pictures are making me determined to have wildflower garden

So far I can’t grow anything because of the stupid soil. I’m going to have to get some pots with half decent soil in and then some bee bombs to encourage the wildflowers to grow

I’m going to go this too, I love it!

Are you sure about the soil? I thought wildflowers lived poor soil?

You can actually get meadow turf which is like normal turf but implanted with meadow/wildflowers. I haven’t looked much into it but that could be an option?

I’m sure other MNers will have better info than me 🙂

@HeartShapedBalloon

I'm going to be rewilding my front garden soon! It's only 6x4 feet but it's currently all stone chippings. Can't wait to see the bees and butterflies!

How lovely! When it's all done and flowering start a new post with photographs!

So they don't want to turn their gardens, that they use, wildflower friendly- but the will lob a few seeds on the footpath and reckon they're helping save the planet. Would piss me off too to be honest. Half arsing a bit of grass out the front because you basically can't be arsed, but making sure they stay out your nicely mowed garden is hypocritical- do both or neither.

Yup wildflowers like poor soil. I've never had much luck with seed bombs but you can buy plugs or slightly larger pots online which work ok if you don't have a huge area or if you are planting into a lawn rather than starting from scratch. I have a book called Wild your Garden which talks through ways to create different wild areas. Some a tad too ambitious for me as they would require a whole garden makeover but it has given me some inspiration to have a go.

Thank you. I’ll give it a go!

YABU

Short of tarmac, I think there's nothing duller than perfectly mown grass.

I mean, this is the choice... Actually, it's not even a choice, is it?

Not that it needs to be said (again), but YABU. I love having wildflowers everywhere and I refuse to use weedkiller on my lawn. It's my god damn lawn anyway. Or wildflowers are in our back garden, so not on the path anyway, but if anyone told me they looked unkempt and that I should get rid of them I think I'd laugh in their silly face.