Advice on trees and wildflowers

[housemover2019]

I posted the photo below back in May to ask for some advice on my new garden. A few months on and the grass is now a luscious green (hurray!), we've got some garden furniture and patio pots, and I'm about to get the fence painted.

After that I want to have a wildflower section down the bottom right of the garden - is there a best time of year to make a start on this, would I better waiting for next spring? Sorry, am complete gardening novice!
I also received some great tree advice as I'd like a few along the back fence for privacy. My DH isn't sure if it'll be possible however as once our garden ends there's only concrete behind it from the houses' backyards behind us. Would this matter for tree roots? And again re planting these - best time of year?

Thanks again!

Whoops forgot photo!

Trees - no, they'll be fine. If you want "a few" you're not looking at big trees. Best time of year is during their dormant period, ie autumn or spring (avoid frosty weather). They'll need watering for their first year.

Wildflowers - the answer depends on what you mean by this. Do you want genuinely wild flowers, ie UK natives? Do you want bee-friendly flowers, but you're not fussed whether they're native or not? Do you want "wildflowers" as planted in so many of our parks, which are merely an informal planting of mixed annuals? And do you want a mixture of cornfield plants, which are sown into bare ground, and are annuals needing bare ground so the ground has to be dug over each year and possibly re-seeded? (This is what most of the parks plantings are like) Or do you want a wildflower pasture or meadow, ie grass with mainly perennial wildflowers which you cut infrequently.

Thanks @MereDintofPandiculation . Good to know I can plant a tree or two in autumn. Re the wildflowers, I hadn't given it that much thought - want something low maintenance and pollinator friendly, ideally!

Trentham Gardens did some magnificent wild flower displays this year.

want something low maintenance and pollinator friendly, ideally!

Option 1 - In spring, clear ground to bare earth, make sure there aren't any roots of eg dandelion, grass left in it, sow a packet of annual seeds labelled with the "good for pollinators" logo (a little bee). They'll flower and then die down, look a bit of mess over winter. Dig over the top few inches of soil so you're back to bare earth. Next spring the seeds they've dropped should come up again, or you may prefer to sow some more to get the full mix. You may need to weed out thuggish plants whose seeds have blown in from elsewhere. Best advice is not to weed anything out until you know exactly what it is - that way you don't accidentally lose things you've sown, and you get to learn what the young seedlings look like of the problem plants

Option 2 - clear to bare earth and ideally take off the top couple of inches of top soil. Sow a perennial meadow mix, which will grass plus wildflowers. Mow it in August, and again as needed from then on, collecting the clippings and taking them elsewhere (compost heap or as mulch under your trees). In later years give it a mow in spring, then from May leave it to flower, and start mowing again in August. To keep the flowers going the most important thing is to keep the nutrient level down (grass will win in high nutrient conditions), so don't let the grass die down and return its nutrient to soil and roots, hence cutting in August rather than leaving it till later.

Option 1 will look more "flowery" but option 2 will look better in winter.

Option 1 is mimicking a field where arable crops are growing, option 2 is mimicking a hay meadow.

Thank you - great advice!

Now of course is a great time to visit gardens too, to get inspiration!

A good place to start is The open garden scheme which will have ideas of places to visit near you: ngs.org.uk/