Wild lawn

[FloofyBird]

We've been trying to let our front lawn become wild. I was hoping for a full on meadow/wildflower type scenario but it seems this is much harder than I thought and actually takes a lot of work to do properly.

Anyway, the last couple of years we've just strimmed it a couple of times a year. This year we have daisies, wild violet, forget me nots, grape hyacinths and a yellow flower I haven't identified yet which have all grown of their own accord. Would it be weird to add some bulbs like snowdrops, anemone etc to the lawn too?

Not at all - daffodils look lovely in grass, and I think some of the smaller tulips look great too as the grass tends to be a bit longer by then. I think snowdrops look better on the edges of things, and you might find anenomes don’t like the competition. Camassias can look amazing.

We did this and I regret it - it looks like a big mess, not sure what we do next but the lawn is full of weeds by this I mean shiny geranium which is proving impossible to keep under control and removing it is also close to impossible. I think we'll have to lift our entire lawn.

Yep. I wish I hadn't started either. I'm persisting because I dont know what else i would do.

DH likes it and it does get compliments but I find it embarrassing.

We've had comments - they often feel like people are being polite rather than complimentary. Ohh aren't you brave and it's good to do your bit for the environment. Not convinced it was a good plan - back garden maybe but front garden needs to be neat, IMO.
I have a meeting with a lawn specialist next week - can't decide between that and removing the lawn entirely.

Anemone would struggle, snowdrops, daffodils (small ones like tete-a-tete) species tulips and species crocus all do well in grass. Fritillaries if you don’t mind something taller. Primroses and cowslips are good too.

Try mowing a short path through it and around the edges. Deliberate untidiness looks a lot better. Shining geranium (geranium lucidum) is a lovely little plant, neat humps with clear pink flowers and bright red dying leaves.

I think one problem is that some people go in for “no mow May” thinking their lawn will magically turn into a “wildflower meadow” like the ones sown by local authorities in the parks. They won’t, because those “wildflower meadows” are full of cornfield weeds - cornflower, corn marigold (the clue is in the name), poppies - all annuals which need bare soil.

The second reason is that if a lawn has been “weed and feed”ed for years, there won’t be much of a seedbank. I, with my lawn being a meadow since Victorian times and simply mown since, stand a much greater chance of interesting things growing.

In my garden shiny geranium is hugely invasive and has taken over the lawn - nothing little about it - no neat clumps - it is everywhere and it cannot be mowed as it grows below the mowing height - you can barely see what I've mowed and what I haven't as so much of the grass has died - so mowing a path idea doesn't work. We'll have to agree to differ - hence why it's a disaster and it needs to go - it looks horrible.

If youre going to keep it, then IMO it can look very deliberate and cared for with something very formal in amongst it - eg clipped topiary balls, or hyper-neat mown path or spiral shape mown into it.

Im trying to get a shadier wildflower patch going at the end of our back garden which can look as messy as it likes. I've just moved "weeds" from elsewhere - foxgloves, welsh poppy, alpine strawberries - and I'll see what survives. Not very RHS of me.