Wild Flowers

Lovely photo, Sussexborn.
@ Baggs - I envy you!
Our first place in France had a field which had been used for cattle and sheep and had some beautiful wild flowers in spring and summer. Including 3 types of wild orchids, wild gladioli, and those tall white daisy things. And meadowsweet.
Now we only have a 2m by 2m back garden.

I took the photo as they were coming to an end. Initially there were a number of cornflowers as well. Will definitely repeat the process again this year.

Wow! sussexborn that's an impressive seed packet's worth!

Yours must have been a very interesting project too Baggs well done.
Some of us attempted to create a border at the community garden with only native seeds and plants. Unfortunately, though carefully prepared, it was almost impossible to remove the perennial "weeds" so it didn't look all that great but the bees liked it so it must have been doing good.

I had some flower bombs for Christmas. For a while I thought that they were for the bath. Seems that they are little balls of flowers and you just throw them where you want them to grow. Have no idea what they are, imagine some quick annuals.

I think there was an item on Countryfile this evening but I couldn't stop what I was doing to watch it.

I think some wildflowers benefit from being sown in wee pots and then planted as plugs, rather than being sown directly onto lawns.

Another thing that makes a difference is soil fertility. Many wildflowers want comparatively barren soils. Others need bare-ish earth so you'd need to scrape away a bare patch in your lawn.

Another good place for info is the bsbi.org (Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland). People are very helpful if you want to ask questions.

There is a #wildflowerhour on Twitter every Sunday at 8pm too.

Deer eat any "garden" flowers that I plant so I've allowed our garden to revert as much as possible to what we think it was before our house was built in 1890 — cow pasture — and, so far, have identified over 200 wild plants (including mosses and liverworts; it's not all flowering plants) in it without planting any. I let thing set seed and scythe afterwards. It has been an amazing learning experience.

One packet of seeds from Poundland

Ooh, gramaretto that is only 30 miles down the road from me!!! Now I know there’s a tea room I may go!!

I must have visited about 2008. when DGC were babies. No tearoom and no fields. Very seductive website!

2012

Sorry to keep harking back to France - our old potato patch was there. We gave up because of wireworm and colorado beetle. And sometimes mildew.
In the surrounding countryside you could see many of these beautiful 'flowering prairies.' I think farmers had to show that they qualified for subsidies by never letting fallow land lie unproductive.
Bees and butterflies etc liked them too.

No, they started in 1978 and has 45 acres, supplied the 2p12 Olympic Games with seeds and plants.

Perhaps they were just starting out when you went past, Grammaretto.
It looks rather good.

I take it back. They have a tearoom and visitor's centre now.

Here is the site where we bought all those healthy plants. Just don't visit it, that's all I'm saying.
www.naturescape.co.uk/

Thank you Baggs

What I was aiming for was a wildflower meadow and it's just not going to work here!
I will have to work with what I've got.

Namsnanny

Thanks for a really informative post.

Thanks Baggs that is a helpful website.

plantlife.org.uk

Unfortunately many wildflower seed mixtures are full of non-native wild flowers, which kind of defeats the purpose of helping native pollinators.

Check out plantlife.org if you want to know more

Your picture was definitely my aim too Fennel!
I ordered some wild flowers seeds and some wild roses from a place with a romantic name somewhere in Derbyshire . The plants and seeds arrived and did very well. The following year I happened to be passing near the "farm" so called by.
Oh the disappointment when it turned out not to be a farm at all but a unit on an industrial estate which was closed.

I will be sure to post a picture when they have appeared. I need to get on with sowing if I am to have any success!

We do have a nice crop of celandines at the moment.

Fennel, I'm growing mine in an area of rather pathetic lawn which is in fact more weeds than grass.

That picture was my aim!

I bought a large bag of compost which had wildflower seeds in it and was very disappointed with the results but then my very knowledgeable neighbour said it was probably the compost which was the problem as it was too rich.
I have also scratched the surface and put down about 6 packets of seeds but what came up were the more aggressive types and not the more attractive ones, although I did get one cornflower!
Someone gave me some Beebombs so I will use those soon