Wildflower advice

[MummaPI]

Hi
I'm a very amateur gardener who has found such pleasure in gardening during the pandemic. I have an area I would love to plant wildflowers and am after any tips please!
Which flowers? Seeds or plants? Bit of both?
We have stripped the area and raked it over and taking out any grasses or weeds that appear at the moment.
Thanks!

I've done a meadow with perennial grass mix plus annuals to act as a 'nurse' for the first year . It's certainly coming up well and has covered a big patch of bare earth I had (very Sandy low nutrient as it had slabs on it last year ). However I've realised that although it was bought from a very reputable supplier it did also contain weeds, and I'm doing an awful lot of 'editing' and using plant apps to check that seedlings are from the stated mix.

If I was to do it again I'd sew just the perennial meadow and add plugs. Although maybe the weeds were in the grassland mix, who knows. Anyway, today I decided to embrace it and learn to recognise wildflower seedlings I want so I can hoik out the things I don't want.

I have a lot of corn marigold, chamomile , speedwell , mayweed coming up and I am sure I can see some cornflowers as well. I planted some oxeye daisy plugs I gre from seed as well and they are also in the meadow mix so if nothing else I should get them next year!

It's quite a lot of work but I'm finding it quite interesting

I have a large meadow area but it is mainly grasses still (albeit long). There are some flowers but mainly mainstream lawn stuff like buttercups. The seed hasn’t done much apart from a few ox eye daisies. Instead I’ve taken to transplanting all the “weeds” from every other area in the garden so there are now borage seedlings, rosebay willow herb, forget me nots etc winding their way through.

I too cleared a patch at the side of my house this year. Light shade sandy soil. Sowed loads of different wild seeds in rows. Best seed growing is definitely phacelia then foxgloves and marigolds. Phacelia produces nectar all day and can also be used as a green manure for your borders.

weed is not a designation of plant. It's a subjective assessment from the gardener/farmer that these plants are not wanted in this position. Which are the wildflowers that you didn't want in your patch?

that was a question for tootyfruitypickle

HasaDigaEebowai I like that approach!

Best seed growing is definitely phacelia Yes, it's used as a "green manure". But it isn't, of course, a UK wild flower.

@MereDintofPandiculation I do agree but after some umming and ahhing I pulled out some shepherds purse, there was quite a lot and I was worried it would take over. And it wasn't on the seed mix. I think most things that remain are but I need to do a proper check at the weekend. There was also some groundsel that I removed.

Happy to be corrected if you think they would have been ok to stay? I'm just going on what was on the seed mix label so I know if it's meant to be there or not !

I've tons and tons of lady's thumb which is in the borders around there too and driving me nuts and I'm certain that came in with the mix. I had bare earth there all last summer and no weeds at all except for a bit of that sticky stuff (can't remember the name!).

My front garden is long grass and lots of 'weeds'. All I've done there is sew yellow rattle. Need to have a look at it to see if any has grown ! I'd like to try and get some poppies etc in there next year.

@tootyfruitypickle I don't think either of them would have managed to survive long term, they'd have been out-competed. Shepherd's purse I don't feel any particular affection for - there are so many tiny white crucifers, and having a distinctive seed pod doesn't quite make up for its mediocrity in other departments. Groundsel, likewise - its main redeeming feature to my mind is as an alternative host for the cinnabar moth caterpillar. The Persicaria (I hadn't heard the name lady's thumb) probably wouldn't have established in the meadow - it's an annual and likes reasonably clear soil, which is why it's in your borders. Sticky stuff? - goosegrass/cleavers/sticky willy?

So - they'd have been OK to stay, but equally it's OK to remove them. It's your garden, your choice. What is a "weed" to you may be a treasured plant to me and vice versa. In the last couple of days I've been pulling up armfuls of Alchemilla mollis, forget-me-not, Alpine strawberry and early dog violet

Following. We have wildflowers in one part of my garden, not planted by me. They come back every year. In the other part I scatter seeds or plant things and nothing ever happens! (Apart from long grass).

@MereDintofPandiculation gosh thank you that's so reassuring. I was mildly stressed about it! There's full coverage of all the bare earth but no flowers yet!

I can stop hoiking out the lady's thumb now and focus on clearing it out the borders!

I use a plant app which is where I get the names !!

Always double check - plant apps don’t have the awareness to know when they’ve gone spectacularly wrong