Growing a meadow

[weepingwillow22]

All the houses in our road have a small piece of grass behind our gardens which our covenants say we are not allowed to fence or garden. Our neighbours all mow the bits they own behind their houses but I fancy making ours into a meadow with lots of flowers and insects.

Does anyone have any tips of how to create a really pretty meadow? I have attached a photo, it currently has little white flowers and buttercups but not much else. Should I just scatter some seed, if so when and what flowers? Also when and how often should I mow it. There are currently long tailed tits nesting in the grass.

Meadows are a lot harder than they look to keep looking nice. There is a lot of advice on line about it.

You can take up some of the turf and scatter wildflower seeds and water well till its established, you'd just be in time if you did it now. Don't improve the soil they like it without added fertiliser.You have to time the mowing of the flowery bits right so they can set seed and self seed.

Then mow the bit of grass you've left to create a path through.

Or you can buy plug plants to dig a little hole and pop them in scattered in a natural way. Look for wildflower plug plants on line.

Have you thought of putting daffodil bulbs, crocus and primrose in for the spring, you can put them in in the autumn.

Could you put a pond in - that is very very wildlife friendly.

If you plant teasals the birds love them in the winter and borage is great for the bees in the summer.

www.thelawnstore.co.uk/wildflower-turf-create-wildflower-area/

Thanks Perfidy for the advice. It does sound like quite a lot of work. I was hoping to just scatter some seeds. The meadow turf sounds great for a new plot but I am not too keen on having to dig up all the existing grass first. I like your idea of the bulbs though, will definitely try planting some and the teasals and borage.

To create a meadow is not as easy as it looks. You need to restrict the native grasses otherwise they will overpower the wildflowers. If you can get hold of some yellow rattle seeds that would be the best way to start. This plant inhibits the grass from growing as the yellow rattle is parasitic to the grass. So it uses the grass to feed itself.

Sowing seeds will help, but you need to rake and expose the soil. Poor soil is good, don’t add anything to improve the soil. Poppies will come the first year, but never again as they need the soil to be churned up yearly to germinate the seeds.

If you can get wild flower plug plants they have a better success rate tan seed, but still low.

It will takes years for the seeds to germinate and reseed themselves, but it can be done.

I work on a meadow that was created 9 years ago and it’s beautiful. But takes a lot of maintenance to get it to look wild and natural!

Corn marigolds, corncockle, ox eye daisies are a good start. Main thing is to reduce the grasses. Then when it dies back in late summer, take it all down and leave it on the ground for a few weeks to ensure the seeds have distributed in the soil, then rake it all up.

Thanks Dobbie. Our soil is very heavy clay. Is this good or bad for a meadow?

Just googled the yellow rattle, that is a great tip. I think I have seen it growing locally. Will try to collect some seeds.

Yellow rattle seeds are very expensive so read up on the germination process. Generally need 3 days at 6’ before they germinate. But a fridge can do the same.

Clay shouldn’t be a problem at all.

I’m just making one. Decided after a lot of research to dig up the turf. It’s hard work but it’s filling our new raised beds.

If you want meadow plants to outcompete grass then you need poor soil. If you don’t remove it then you’ll always be fighting the grass.

If you want to do it on the grass then use this method from Monty Don www.sowseeds.co.uk/blogs/sow-seeds-blog/growing-advice-monty-don-6-steps-to-sowing-a-wildflower-meadow
My mum uses this method. Every year let it grow then mow in autumn. Reseed with yellow rattle to weaken the grass every few years.

I'm also in the process of making one around our newly made pond. I bought 2 bulk bags of low fertility soil and then will plant directly on top of that.

Maybe first just let things grow this year and see what you get. Just from letting small patches of my lawn grown I have got harebell, pink verbascum, cowslips, crocus, autumn crocus (poisonous and deadly) birdsfoot trefoil, speedwell, oxeye daisies, violets, and forget me not. You may be lucky and have more, maybe british orchids even, but you can only find out by letting it grow. Then read meadowland by John Lewis Stempel. And then buy yellow rattle and wildflower seeds and decide when and how to mow/scythe. If it turns out to be too daunting you could just have it as a wildflower lawn for now, which is halfway there and super beneficial to wildlife likdme endangered ground roosting birds and rare bees.
Good luck and hope we get some pics one day.

We sowed a third of an acre of meadow last autumn. And it's looking promising. Pics later.
First we cut the existing grass to within an inch of its life, then we scarified, then we sowed a general wildflower/grass mix, mixed with sand. It's a myth that these mixes are all wildflower... in fact more than 80% of the mix is native grasses, but the relatively small number of flowers pack a punch. So far the all important Yellow Rattle has made a great show and we are hopeful it will do its job of suppressing what was there.It's also v pretty. Lots of vetch too, and more species to flower during june and july.
I'm not expecting this to be a done job this summer; it should improve over years of natural broadcast of seeds from plants that have flowered. We'll cut it early sept I expect.
Already it is a joy

We've planted a wildflower meadow on heavy clay soil. We stripped the turf, then seeded with Pictorial Meadows woodland edge. It's the third year and getting there but it's been an enormous amount of work to control the weeds and grasses.

Planting plugs and yellow rattle could work, although I've seen threads where people have struggled. Cowslips grow really well in ours and naturalise, our neighbour doesn't mow the end of her lawn and got the same effect without the work!

Red campion, honesty, yarrow, columbine and hesperis are also doing well. Lots of foxgloves in the more shady woodland bits . We've also got loads of daisies which show up more on the mown paths.

The north Pennines hay meadows are mainly perennial plants - annual plants are more typically arable weeds, dependent on annual ploughing to clear the ground. Corncockle, corn marigold, cornflower reveal this in their names.

With a meadow, the most important thing is to keep the nutrient levels low, so that the flowers aren't our-competed by the grasses which are better adapted to making use of high nutrient levels. So anywhere where the nutrient levels are high, it's more important to remove the grass at the peak of its growth, before it has chance to return the nutrient to roots and soil, than it is to allow the perennial plants to seed. So an earlier cut rather than the later ones.

Northern hay meadows are cut in the first but of dry weather after mid July. They still have 34-35 species per square metre.

Stella's list is good. IF you're able to have taller plants, field geranium grows well in clay, as does greater burnet, knapweed, bush vetch, meadow vetchling, cats ear.

I've just done this. I dug it all over and took out big stones, etc, then raked it and sowed a big sack of meadow grasses/wildflower seed mix (and some extra poppy seeds I bought) and lots of bluebells and then rollered it, and put the lawn queen on it every day. It's all come up now with lots of grass and flowers coming up (no actual blooms yet). Once it's up and running you only have to mow it twice a year so it's very low maintenance.

Hard to see the detail. But Yellow Rattle thriving, along with vetch and is old marjoram and many unidentifiable grasses. Still have old growth coming through and o accept this is a long term process!

Thanks all, certainly a lot to think about. I like the idea of Stella's approach to let it grow and see what we get this year. I have also ordered meadowland by John Lewis Stempel, thanks for the recommendation.

Then next year I will try some yellow rattle and plug plants. Earlier in april we had lots of little white flowers. Any idea what these are?

/as is wild marjoram/ that should read

word of warning about plug plants. we ordered some for this spring as a 'just in case the seeds don't germinate' measure, and by the time delivery time came round the supplier said his own hadn't germinated!!! So I'm glad we sowed our own.

Little beautiful white flowers, their buds tinged pink are possibly cuckoo flower, cardamine pratensis. Comes back every year stronger on my wildflower lawn, not sure if its a perennial though so I try to let it seed fully.
(If you had dug the soil up you would loose such existing plants)

*lose (autocorrect slip)

Yes I think it is cuckoo flower. It is pure white though but googled it and it seems to also have pure white forms. It is quite damp over winter on the heavy clay and also quite shaded so I guess that is why it likes it. Interestingly I read you can put it in salads with the leaves tasting of hot mustard and the flowers of cress. I might try eating some next year.

I might try eating some next year. It's a food plant of the orange tip butterfly, so check for their orange eggs laid singly on the flower stems. If you want to taste in salads, try its close relative bittercress - it's amazing how much less trouble it is in the garden when you're eating it on sight!.

You're so lucky to have the cuckoo flower. This year I had five little clumps in my lawn, and I was so pleased that it was beginning to establish itself. If you've got cuckoo flower, then you've got some sort of a seed bank there, so definitely don't start from scratch, give at least a year to wait and see what comes up. I managed to persuade our Council to leave an area unmown in the local park, and for the last 3 years a marsh orchid has appeared - it was quite a clump last year. Damp grassland on clay (marsh orchids don't need marsh).

Also start learning a few of the grasses as they come into flower. My clay lawn has rye grass, fescue, cocksfoot, foxtail, false oat, Yorkshire fog, and sweet vernal - at the moment the foxtail is out, with fat spikes and dangling creamy anthers turn to purple and then brown; and also the sweet vernal grass with thinner more pointed spikes.

I have been investigating the fgrass and have found a few flowers. Any idea of what they are.

Sorry the quality is not great, was trying to bounce a baby at the same time!

In pic 5 you have goosegrass nestled in a clump at the foot of the taller grass. It is sticky so probably good for keeping some insects at bay. Would spread if given the chance but in a balanced meadow it probably won’t spread far.

The violet flower in pic 3 is speedwell, there will have been more of it in April. It is lovely, feeds the bees, fills the ground, easily pulled out, so it is pretty, and polite