Making A Wildflower Garden

The flowers bloom all summer then the seeds dropped in later fall overwinter and then begin to grow with spring warmth and water.

Making a wildflower garden.

It helps if the lawn is quite poor in the first place with plenty of weeds such as speedwell clover self heal plantain and bird s foot trefoil. Then spread your seeds and water them every day until the flowers start germinating. For a display of wildflowers in a bed or border lay a couple of inches of inert substrate such as sand and simply sow direct at a sowing rate of 2g per square metre. Our wildflower garden is in a raised bed but you can also plant directly in the ground.

The raised bed was built upon a 2 inch 5 cm thick bed of 1 inch 3 cm landscaping rock for drainage and this is not necessary for wildflower gardens not planted in raised beds. The soil for wildflowers is made up of bagged garden soil as well as compost and. There are two proven methods of doing this. To plant your own wildflower garden select ground on your property that gets the most sunlight.

Wildflowers will establish best if planted in the autumn as small plug. Prepare the area by tilling up any grass or weeds. Of course only you can determine what a weed or wildflower is but for the sake of simplicity you should start your garden with a clean palette and remove all existing vegetation. Weed or remove sod by hand.

Before sowing give your spare space a good weeding before sowing anything as weeds will compete for light space and food. Wildflower plug plants can be popped straight into an existing lawn. Weeds are a successful wildflower garden s biggest threat. After all that s how nature plants them.

The wildflowers you use largely depend on your soil conditions personal preference and if you have a colour scheme in mind. These will become part of your new meadow. You can plant a wildflower garden in early spring after frost or in late fall.