Wildflower Border

[EdithGrantham]

Novice gardener alert so this may be a stupid question but here goes. I've started establishing a wildflower border in my garden this year (although I went overboard with the poppies so it needs some tweaking!) and although it's been lovely now it is obviously going to look quite bare earlier in the season next year. Could I shove a load of spring flowering bulbs in there to rectify this once all the wildflowers have died down or would that not work?

It would work. I would put smaller bulbs like crocus (important for early nectar) at the front. Then narcissi, small specie tulips(avoid the big showy ones for scale) and if you can grow them snakes head fritillary, which are actually native plants though they look so exotic. I would also plant cyclamen around the base of any shrubs or trees you have in your border. Next spring you can get hold of snowdrops in the green , or you could take a chance on packet ones, you might be lucky, plant them in groups rather than singly, they always look better, and if the clumps get crowded you can divide them up. In fact plant all your bulbs in clumps, it won’t matter that there is bare soil in the border, the sight of the bulbs will be worth it. I would avoid bluebells , lovely as they are, as they can take over and really look better in huge drifting quantities. With all bulbs you need to let the foliage die back naturally , it is feeding the bulb for next years flowers so don’t chop it off.

If you want spring interest and a natural look you could also include some hellebore.

You can buy Wood anemone bulbs, which are a wild flower. Chionodaxa are small pretty blue spring bulbs. Also Fritillaria are found in the wild.

This is all great thank you! The border isn't very big so no shrubs or trees. I like the idea of native wildflower bulbs and snowdrops, just going to look up some of the others that I've heard of but can't picture!
Will definitely avoid bluebells, have loads in our front garden which I don't particularly want and can't get rid of the blessed things!

All of the above...

Anglia Bulbs...
Peter Nyssen...

@EdithGrantham

This is all great thank you! The border isn't very big so no shrubs or trees. I like the idea of native wildflower bulbs and snowdrops, just going to look up some of the others that I've heard of but can't picture! Will definitely avoid bluebells, have loads in our front garden which I don't particularly want and can't get rid of the blessed things!

I would be tempted to put a smallish shrub in, just for height variation, maybe something that would be of winter interest like a winter flowering honeysuckle ( then you could plant cyclamen at the base] .......

@Ambo21 thanks for those recommendations, I'll take a look

@viques I would have to widen the border to accommodate any shrubs which I'm not against but heavily pregnant at the moment so not sure it will happen in the near future! I could ask DH but the garden is very much my domain and quite like that I've done nearly everything myself so far!

You could look at evergreen star jasmine if there's something for it to grow up against, though mine has been slow growing since I bought it in spring. I also have a hairy lip fern which is evergreen and likes the sun (grows to 50cm but it seems to be a slow grower). I pick at the fern when I need some foliage for little posies so I might mistakenly believe it's a slow grower. Most of my sunny flower bed is bare in winter but I add a thick layer of compost and it looks quite clean and deliberate until new plants start to grow.

How about celandines? I don't know if the standard yellow wild ones might be too invasive, but I've got a pale, almost white, cultivar which seems quite well behaved.
And primroses and cowslips.

A good wildflower border should be able to have something pretty much year round - after all, the natural world does.

@MilduraS, it's next to a fence so definitely scope to have something climbing and jasmine is lovely.

@ErrolTheDragon will add all those to the list, will definitely need to widen it with all these ideas

If you want a climbing 'wildflower' that's good for wildlife then you could consider Ivy - if it gets 'arboreal' at the top then it's one of the main sources of food for bees at the back end of the year. But it can be a heck of a job to keep in order so tbh I'd give that a miss for now if the border is narrow and you're going to have your hands full for a good few years (congratulations!)

@ErrolTheDragon thanks but we took out a hedge of what was a mix of ivy, bindweed and other vigorous climbers to put the fence in so I don't think the NDN would appreciate us putting any ivy back!

Don’t forget primroses to bridge the gap between early bulbs and the main rush of flowers. I’d suggest going for the native wild daffodil