How To Grow A Wildflower Meadow

Growing a wildflower meadow requires seedbed preparation, sowing the right seed mix, the right environment to germinate and maintenance. But gosh, is it worth it! Is there anything more beautiful than a UK countryside meadow in full bloom? Wildflowers are favoured for their array of colours that often last all summer long, and unlike many typical garden floral options they require very little maintenance once sown. These rural patches are perfect for creating a productive feeding and nesting ground for insects, birds and small animals.

A wildflower meadow is typically established in permanent grass areas and not beds of cornfield annuals like poppy. The reason being that poppies grow on fertile soil. Wildflower meadows grow better on unproductive soil, where vigorous grasses don’t out-compete the flowers.

Large areas populated with wildflowers look fantastic but establishing a meadow can be a difficult task if you’re not prepared. It may seem like a chaotic patch of life but you must remember that it is a vast array of grasses, flowers and other plants that all require different nutrients and care to grow. This is why, before you do anything, you should check the soil that you’re working with. Poor quality soils are best suited for wildflower establishment because rich, fertile soils allow weeds and grasses to out-compete them.

Now, there are plenty of products on the market that can assist with wildflower establishment but, if you really want to establish a wildflower meadow that will last year after year, you must do the preparation first.

There are 4 key stages to growing a wildflower meadow:

1) Seedbed preparation

When establishing a wildflower bed, your first step should be to prepare the seedbed and kill any grasses, weeds or other plants in the area. This is best carried out a few months before sowing, to make sure any spraying or digging treatments have been effective. After the area is cleared, the soil has to be broken up. We recommend that you create a fine “breadcrumb” texture with the soil, as you would with lawn preparation. Once you have bare soil, lay black plastic or weed control fabric over to weaken weeds.

Reducing the fertility of your soil is another crucial step in soil prep. It is likely that your soil is too rich for a meadow if it’s had plenty of fertiliser added over the years. To reduce the fertility of your soil, thereby reducing the chances of weeds taking over, you can remove the top three to six inches of topsoil or sow a crop of mustard plants in the first year.

 

2) Sowing seeds

Once the seedbed area is prepared and the soil has been treated, it’s time to consider what wildflower seed mix to sow. Pure or 100% wildflower seed mixtures need to be sown between 2g - 5g per square metre, depending on how much grass you have kept or sown in the area. Mixtures with more grass percentage such as 20% Wildflowers / 80% Grass need to have at least 3g per square metre sown. Although packets of single wildflower seeds do exist, with the abundance that is required for a thriving meadow, it can be difficult as an individual to gauge the right balance. This is why it is always recommended to buy a wildflower mix that has been developed by experts. Pre-mixed wildflower seeds give you a balanced blend of some great varieties. We have a whole host of UK native wildflower seed mixtures to suit every kind of garden or farmland.

Sowing is best done in autumn or in the very beginning weeks of Winter (at the latest). Because the sowing is so thin, mixing the seed with a carrier, such as dry sand will help spread it evenly. Pale-coloured sand helps you see areas that you've already sown and whether you've missed anywhere and we recommend using the ratio five parts sand to one of seed.

Simply scatter the seed as you walk across the ground. To try and get an even coverage, split your seeds into batches and sow one batch walking in one direction and another batch walking at 90 degrees. There's no need to rake the seed in or cover it with soil, but gently walk across it so that the seeds are in contact with the soil. It may be worth investing in a protective net to hide from birds.

 

3) Establishing wildflowers

A few weeks after sowing the seeds will begin to germinate. The various grasses and flowers will come through at different times due to the vast variety of them, so if grasses start to emerge first it’s nothing to be concerned about. For annual mixes or mixes with perennials and annuals in them, colour will come in the first year, but a perennials mix will look much better in its second year.

Year 1 - This is the season for site preparation, an essential but seemingly unrewarding process. Time and effort spent this year will provide a clean seedbed to be planted and mulched in the fall or following spring.

Year 2 – Patience is a virtue this year. If properly maintained, wildflower seedlings will begin to germinate and emerge as the soil warms up in the spring, but it’s hard to tell the wildflowers from the weeds at this point. Few wildflowers will bloom this year as they are devoting their energy to growing strong roots and shoots to come back year after year. Seeds such as Black-eyed Susan are the exceptions to the rule, so be sure to include it in your seed mix to provide cheerful yellow flowers this year.

Year 3 – If your plants survived the germination process then they will emerge quickly in the spring and grow much faster and larger this year. By late June, you should see some flowers on coreopsis and columbine, if they are in your mix, followed by foxglove beardtongue and blackeyed Susan. Wild Rye shoots up and provides a pleasant contrast with its distinctive seed heads.

Year 4 and beyond – You and the biodiversity that you have helped create will reap the rewards of your efforts. You can now enjoy a dense, diverse mix of colourful wildflowers from spring through late autumn. Warm-season grasses fill in areas where the wildflowers are less dense, providing clumps that shelter ground-nesting bees and other creatures.

 

4) Maintenance

To keep your flower meadow in good condition, go over the area with a strimmer either at the end September or October (after the plants have all finished flowering) and allow cuttings to dry on the ground for 2 days. This will leave time for all the seeds to drop. It's a good idea to vary the time you cut each year or some plants may begin to dominate others thus reducing the amount of diversity in your mix. You may need to do some 'spot' weeding, to remove things like nettles, dock and thistles and have a general healthy plant environment.

These meadows of flowers and grasses, bursting with colour, will be an attractive feature in your garden or rural space. Our countryside was once full of meadows bursting with a gorgeous variety of flowering plants but since the 1930s, we have lost over 99% of what are called 'unimproved grasslands'. If you are working to get these natural wonders back, ask our team about steps that you can take or check out our Stewardship page.