Introduction
This is not the complete guide to making meadows - it's not even close to it. We have a list of links and books on our website from much better qualified folk which will give you a much better and in depth description, but I felt it might be helpful to have a brief outline online, to coin a phrase. Gentle reader, I imagine you are a gardener or landowner looking to turn a relatively small area of land into a meadow - if you're thinking larger scale I would be delighted to put you in touch with someone altogether more credible, and if you're thinking smaller have a look at www.meadowanywhere.com.
There is a mystique about meadow creation that suggests it is difficult and time consuming. Not necessarily so. A small area of wildflower meadow not only puts a large tick in aesthetic and ecological boxes, it will also REDUCE some of your most wearisome labour.
Make one because you want to and not because you think it's the right thing to do. This translates into its management too; one gardener's weed is another's favourite wildflower.
What is a Wildflower Meadow?
Long before you start your wildflower meadow area you must address some questions. Before we start, let's establish something. What is a wildflower meadow? It's not this (yet), lovely though it looks. These are grasses and annual wildflowers, of which you can buy natives (shown) or non-natives, which produce a gorgeous display in mid-summer and provide welcome nectar and pollen to pollinators. That's all though folks. If you use non-natives, or do multiple sowings, you can extend the flowering period, but it's not only quite a different look to a meadow - no grasses, for a start - but also fails to produce interest for as long or to deliver a nice rewarding ecosystem. Butterflies, for example, love the nectar from annual wildflowers but need perennials and grasses as foodplants for their larvae. Furthermore, annuals demand a completely different regime; I grow them in borders and follow the tips in this video from one of our suppliers, Emorsgate Seeds: Managing Cornfield Annuals
Is My Site Suitable?
So, back to wildflower meadows. To start with, can you grow a meadow on your site? How much sun does your putative meadow get? As much as possible; it is of course possible to grow wildflowers in shade, but a wildlflower meadow you won't get. Is the area you're thinking of used for anything else? Many folk (mea culpa) establish a nice looking meadow area in a new orchard, only for it to be shaded out in 10 years time. In any case, fruit trees like rich soil, meadows don't. This last point is much debated. You'll read a lot about meadows' need for low fertility soils. I don't think that's entirely true particularly in a small scale, although richer soils make for more management as you'll have to hoick out nettle and dock endlessly. You should definitely work to reduce soil fertility over time by removing cuttings.
How Do I Start?
You have a choice of 3 routes (all of which those lovely people at Habitat Aid can help you with), and will need to take different first steps according to which you choose. The table below attempts to summarize the differences between wildflower turf, seed mixes and plugs. Of course, all 3 are not mutually exclusive, and we often recommend starting with say half the area you are thinking of working on.
We've only recently figured out how to make successful wildflower turf, but it's a problem which seems to have been cracked by our supplier. Its great virtue is that it is instant, and can create an almost immediate effect. Although you can include annual wildflowers in a seed mix, we often have customers complain that there is nothing happening in their meadow for ages while the perennial flowers establish themselves. It can be pretty diverse, but not as diverse as the better seed mixes, and of course it's one size fits all; unless you have over 400 square metres to cover, in which case we can produce turf on a bespoke basis, there is one - albeit rather good - mix for everyone. You not only lose local diversity, but you couldn't easily tweak the mix for a particular purpose either. You might want to encourage a particular species of butterfly by introducing its food plant, for example. I think it's a cracking solution for some, however. Don't be too put off by the cost; if necessary you can use a chess board planting system, alternating between existing sward or seeded squares and wildflower turf. This video is well worth a look: Wildflower Turf . Fab.
Seed mixes are much cheaper and can be tweaked as to soil type, situation and customer requirement. The ecologists like them as you can find very diverse mixes with at least relatively local provenance; this mix is from the Blackdown Hills, for example. Designers don't because they take a couple of years to really get going and can be oddly fickle, although you can easily get pretty much instant colour by adding a "nurse" of cornfield annuals - which is what you can see in the first photo. If you don't buy your seed through us please please make sure you are buying from another specialist supplier, preferably a signatory of the Flora Locale code of practice.
It's relatively tricky to establish a seed mix in an existing sward, which puts a lot of people off. One way or the other you really need to start with a clean sheet, which means either mechanical or repeated chemical intervention to kill existing weeds or, better, stripping the topsoil off completely. You can try to cheat, by using the useful grassland flower Yellow Rattle (see below) - we've done it successfully, but it takes at least two seasons and can be a bit tricky. Much easier to use plug plants, which can be inserted so long as you keep the grass away from them while they establish.
| Seed | Plugs | Turf | |
| Cost | Low | Medium | High |
| Diversity | High | Low | Medium |
| Speed | Medium | Medium | Instant |
| Local | (can be) High | Low | Low |
| Use in grass | Slow | Yes | No |
| Customization | High | Medium | No |
| Preparation | High | Medium | Medium |
What Next?
Many people sow/plant/unroll in spring. If you do, be prepared to water - particularly as our springs have been so dry recently - and make sure the soil has been properly prepared. At that time of year it's difficult to know how many weeds might be lurking on your site. There's also an issue with "vernalization"; many species, most renownedly Rattle, need a prolonged period of cold before they germinate, so if you sow them in spring you won't see anything until the following year. If you've decided to do the meadow thing around the time of writing - April - that's perfect. Spend the summer preparing the site and planning and DON'T shoot from the hip. Work towards D Day in October, when you want to be looking at bare soil.
If you want to convert existing grass into meadow without going through this stage it will take longer than you think. You can either use plug plants or Yellow Rattle, or both. For plug plants make sure the grass is cut tight and killed or removed around each plug so that it won't be outcompeted by it. Reckon on 5 per square metre, and if the grass is particularly lush use Rattle as well. Yellow Rattle is an attractive annual wildflower which parasitizes grass, reducing its vigour and thus giving other wildflowers more of a chance. It needs to be sown in Autumn, and you need to cut any existing grass very short as well as scarify it to see around 50% earth before raking the seed in. The idea is that after a year you can cut tight and scarify again, but this time sow your other wildflowers.
Comments