Border care

[NotVeryGreenFingers]

I moved into a property laid to wild lawn. I cut half of it and left the rest full of yellow mustard, white daisies, red poppies and purple thistle. Mostly due to lack of time to garden and money.

However, I do much enjoyed each morning waking to a glut of new poppies and the lack of maintenance needed, so would like to keep sometime if a wild flower feel, maybe not all of the garden but some of it.

However, my question is what to do with it at the end of July when it's dead. I don't really want to be borderless for the rest of the year until next April/May when it all starts up again.

Do I cut it all back in July or expect more poppies and the likes? I have to say I don't like the thistles and really left them more because they prickle than their looks so will be glad to get rid of them!

Any ideas gratefully received

Honestly? I would dig it all out, make your borders much deeper and look at some plants which you do like, maybe in other people's gardens or a garden centre, and make a plan of easy to care for perennials and shrubs. Go for some evergreens for colour all year, and research the perennials so you have some interest from spring until the first frosts.

I think your neighbours will thank you for it as lots of those weeds will seed themselves/send runners into their gardens 🙈

You make a good point about the seeding though luckily I have no neighbours close by. I also can't afford to buy plants at the money so am a bit stuck that way, though I'd love to make a nice border do things I'd truly like.

Those are Spear Thistle as opposed to Creeping Thistle. I rather like them but they look better as a single specimen. You could leave them for the goldfinches, or you could chop them to stop them spreading over your garden.

the thing in the foreground with the big oval leaves could be Bristly Ox Tongue.

I’d probably chop back yo look vaguely tidy (ie not flopping over the lawn) then see if anything else appeared. Then over winter pull everything out (unless there’s something you like) and leave bare soil for next year’s poppies.

If you like the wildflower feel, at this time of year you get natives like scabious, meadow cranesbill, often the blue-ish flowers taking over from the pink. Or you could go quasi-wildflower and buy a packet of “wildflower” seed which may include non natives. At the moment the Council’s “wildflower” mix across the road is a mass of colour, mainly corn marigold (which will carry on till the frosts), with cornflower, Ox-eye Daisy, Cosmos.

You are allowed to collect seed from the wild - don’t collect more than a little, none unless there’s a lot of the plant in question.