Turning a small patio garden into a mini wildflower meadow

[Marinapeppina]

We live in an upper floor flat with steps down to our garden, direct access. It’s completely paved at the moment and I’d like to turn it into an eco garden.

how feasible is this? We’d hire someone to do it. We never ever use the garden as it is so I’d just like it to look nice and be a bit more ecologically friendly.

What's the soil like, and how much sun does it get?

@tailinthejam its literally all paved at the moment, but it’s south facing and gets tons of sun. We’re in London so I imagine the soil is London clay?

What a lovely project! You could remove the paving and sow a meadow mix (which needs nutrient poor soil), but this really needs to be done in October or February. Wildlflower turf is another option. However adding a pond is the best thing you can do for biodiversity. There are some lovely raised ponds (eg Woodblocx) and seating planters which you could install onto the paving and start to add pollinator friendly planting and some tree shade, which doesn’t need to be high maintenance and will really boost the biodiversity of the garden and make it a welcoming space.

If it's small you risk it looking like an overgrown neglected garden.

That sounds lovely!
My parents have made a third of their garden into a meadow, and it's a very nice place to be. The bees and the bumblebees and the grasshoppers love it!
I don't have any advice, but I wish you luck!

@mondaytosunday that’s true. But at the moment it looks like a neglected paved garden, so I’d at least like it to be ecological 😂

For this year, I’d consider sowing ( or buying) some annuals such as cornflowers, California poppies, Nigella and cosmos. This will give you flowers that attract insects and bees. Flowering herbs such as Thyme, marjoram, lemon balm and rosemary all attract insects.
Then it gives you time to research and consider wildflowers etc.

Clay might be too rich for wildflowers, but definitely focus on insect-friendly ones. Don't forget the moths - get some night scented flowers too (eg jasmine, nicotiana). Lemon balm is a thug and needs to be kept in a pot.

You could consider lifting some slabs and planting in the spaces. We have a terrace which is a mixture of gravel and york stone. The original concept was for low growing plants, so we have cyclamen for winter and early spring, creeping thyme, harebells, woodruff, winter savory, Aubretia, Dryas. But taller things have crept in, and really good for bumblebees have been the Centaurea nigra and the scabious.

Meadows are quite hard work and you have to know how to manage them.

Could you fill it with pots/troughs and make
it look really colourful and have strawberry plants etc for you to pick and a small bistro table and chairs? You could make it into a colourful spot that looks inviting and attracts wildlife.

Agree with this. I would try this type of low maintenance garden first until I knew my own commitment, what grows there, etc. It's also expensive to turn it back into a paved patio if you change your mind.

Mini meadow might be hard to achieve but pots with bee friendly plants and even a tiny pond would be lovely.

Your neighbours may not thank you, I planted a wildflower area around my pond, the seeds have spread and my entire lawn is now meadow which is fine by me although looks chaotic right now as not many flowers have bloomed... I'm sure it'll look amazing in a month.

I love this idea! We have a new-build garden, all turf and solid clay beneath it. Digging it is back-breaking. I want to remove all the turf and start a wildflower meadow but it would take forever and be expensive to get done professionally. We might try one small area first though.
Good luck with your mini meadow!

Make sure the pavers aren't laid on reinforced steel. Our yard used to be a carport and the previous owners had put RSJs onto the concrete. Put paid to our plans for a lawn and beds

This is a nice idea.

Lifting the slabs is the first step, to see what is under there.

How big is the area?

Are you sure you wish to do this, it’s a huge work. Digging up hard standing, which costs a fortune to lay, will reduce the value of your property. Then turning what’s there into a wild flower meadow is hugely hard work, it needs redoing each year, digging out, turning over, replanting, and during the winter will just be nothing. In addition if it is not done right with a good mix of seeds, and just some boxes you buy at the garden centre or from Amazon you end up with more wild grass than flowers and it’s very difficult to manage

if you’d a large garden and were a keen gardener wishing to do the work, great idea. Removing your whole patio to turn your whole small garden into a wildflower meadow when you aren’t a keen gardener or know what they are doing is honey I ruined the garden time.

Also agree with this.

We have a similar garden and just have pots. Lavender does really well, as do herbs, but we had a few false starts with the sage until we put it into a really deep pot. The advantage of pots is that you can just reposition (or replant!) if something isn’t working out.

I’ve also had success with trailing lobelia, winter Jasmine. My best discovery, though, was erigeron which are daisies which grow super quickly and flower for ages. As my username suggests, I’m not great with gardens. But these have worked for us.

So many ways to make a small garden look wonderful. But lots of pots, plants in different sizes, multiple climbers etc and fill it up is the trick. It does have a cost and can be time consuming but this is manageable in many ways, from using old receptacles as planters, to adding cheaper plants like strawberries or bamboo, but way less cost and work than what you’re suggesting. Which is not just dig the patio up and chuck some wild flower seed down. It’s much easier to do pots and plants. And you can do bits each year and build it up .

that’s what we have done on our patio. Each year we add more to it. Repot where appropriate, it’s not much work on an ongoing basis.

we have surrounded it with climbing roses, large bamboo in pots, acers, ornamental grasses, camellias, palms, jasmine, honeysuckle, clematis , Cordylines, etc and then lots of small perennial plants, and each year we plant in some cheap annuals, like petunias etc. and it’s wonderful. We have spent about 200 to 300 a year for the last 6 or 7 years on plants, soil and pots, and now it’s stunning.

here is an image of a small garden with a similar theme. As said, unless you’re a keen gardener wanting to manage this properly and some deep pockets, I’d steer clear of digging your patio up to turn it into a meadow.

Are their weeds growing between the paving slabs - if so you could sprinkle seeds and they should grow there - I have geraniums growing between slabs and poppies.

Lift a couple of the slabs in the corner and put in a tiny pond. I've got one that about 60cmx60cm. Put it in last year and the amount of little water beasts inc frogs that have already found their way to it is amazing. You may need to plant some things around it to give the wildlife some cover, but you could then surround it with pots with pollinator friendly plants in. I wouldn't dig up a whole patio to start with - just try a bit and see how you get on.

Pots and troughs to look good are not maintenance free though. They will need daily watering in the summer at least, dead heading flowers, shrubs pruned, replenishing top layer of compost in spring and remember weeds still grow in pots; are you ok with this level of work.

PP idea of lifting a few strategic slabs and planting is what I’d go for.

Seconding the strawberry recommendation. We put some strawberries from the garden centre into a pot on a similar area in our front garden (gravel over a weed membrane). They self-seeded and we have a large strawberry bed with virtually no effort several years later! We also have a pond in a large container (in semi shade) and after several years it has formed its own ecosystem and no longer needs any planting or maintenance. A timber corner container pond with wide sides you can perch on would be nice.

Muddy Trowel sell complete packs of plants, compost, containers etc.