Thinking of trying to establish a (very) small wild flower meadow. Will it work?

[sameagain]

I have a 3 foot deep border at the bottom of my garden. It has a mostly native hedge at the back, which is struggling due to very poor soil and competition from a couple of latges trees, but is starting to look like it might pull through.

In front I have bulbs and have, over the years, tried a number of perennial flowering plants, but none have succeeded. I am now thinking of letting the grass grow into the border and throwing down some wildflower seeds. Can it work? Where would you get the seeds?

latges??? large

There are wildflower seed mixes available from all the large seed producers like Thompson and Morgan so you could just go to your local garden centre. I just googled wildflower seeds and came up with lots!

If your plants have trouble establishing you may find it easier to get things on the go by buying plug plants - now is a good time to do this. If the area is under trees then go for shade loving wild flowers - probably spring ones which flower before the tree canopies get too dense.

Something that does grow under our laurel hedges is the native male fern dryopteris felis max (I think) which tolerates dry shade and we also have about a million aquilegia seedings which don't seem to mind poor soil and competition.

wildflower meadows are notoriously difficult to grow and make beautiful, and even then they are often shortlived. You may notice that the kind of people who have them have loads of space and loads of money, so they can have them plouged up and reseeded every year, and have something else to look at when they go over.

You need to choose the right seeds for the spot - shade/sun/clay/chalk/dry/damp etc etc - and you need to manage their lives properly: there are loads of books of how to do it.

But you might be better off trying to improve the soil a bit and find the right plants for the spot. If you still want wildflowers you can use plugs, try here wildflower plugs . Most important is to assess the conditions and plant what will be happy there - don't fight what you've got.

I doubt the wildflowers will take if you just throw the seeds where there is competition from grass -- you'd have to establish the wildflowers first, then let the grass grow there.

Remember they are only beautiful for a very short while and have to be cut down a couple of times a year or the grasses will crowd out the wildflowers.

What is the aspect? I think it might be better to keep trying to find the right perennials for the spot.

I have a teeny tiny but very lovely wildflower 'meadow' - it is about 1m wide and about 4 metres long. Has a hedge on one side and stone path on the other. This will be the 3rd season and already is chock full of flowering red-campion which look amazing.

We cleared the ground, although very roughly so the seeds would have a fighting chance. It's really hard for seeds to compete with already garden grass. It's really important that the land isn't too fertile as well so now feeding it. We then sowed the 'hedgerow' mix from here - meadowmania. We chose a mix of grasses and flowers which is lovely - I'm fairly certain we planted it about this time of year and it did look lovely the first summer although much improved the second summer. The site also has some good info on how to establish your meadow. We are really happy with it and I'm now thinking of trying to create another area in a different part of the garden. V. low maintenance - all we did was dead-head a few ox-eye daisies to keep them flowering for longer and also in about october when it has all died down just went over it with the strimmer. We did look at the wildflower plugs but they were just so expensive.

I have a teeny tiny but very lovely wildflower 'meadow' - it is about 1m wide and about 4 metres long. Has a hedge on one side and stone path on the other. This will be the 3rd season and already is chock full of flowering red-campion which look amazing.

We cleared the ground, although very roughly so the seeds would have a fighting chance. It's really hard for seeds to compete with already garden grass. It's really important that the land isn't too fertile as well so now feeding it. We then sowed the 'hedgerow' mix from here - meadowmania. We chose a mix of grasses and flowers which is lovely - I'm fairly certain we planted it about this time of year and it did look lovely the first summer although much improved the second summer. The site also has some good info on how to establish your meadow. We are really happy with it and I'm now thinking of trying to create another area in a different part of the garden. V. low maintenance - all we did was dead-head a few ox-eye daisies to keep them flowering for longer and also in about october when it has all died down just went over it with the strimmer. We did look at the wildflower plugs but they were just so expensive.

You don't want lawn grass competing with wildflowers - and you will need an appropriate mix to cope with site adjoining hedge... apart from that sounds not too bad!

Lidl do a seed mix for wildflowers - i ts about 1.99 and covers 100m squared..??!?!

(I'm planning to do a bit of guerilla gardening with mine!!)