[Misc] Wildflower Meadow advice.

[Justice]

Contractor and skip = all the money gone.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I'm not sure (ie i don't know!) if creating a wildflower meadow in the manner you suggested would meet the criteria for a 'rewilding' grant. There is a significant difference between the two.

The grant material seems quite broad and maybe I have described it wrongly. There were illustrative pictures of children in a meadow full of native flowers for instance. I'll look again when I have time at work.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

A great idea I think. Did read something a while back about considering where you live, what native plants/wildflowers etc occur naturally and seeking to replicate those rather than chucking in a random wildflower mix..maybe worth getting in contact with your local wildlife trust as well? Hope it’s successful if you go ahead with it..and if so be great to see some progress photos.

Great idea.

 

[WATFORD zero]

About 20 or 25 years ago the Natural History Museum built an incredibly detailed, free online database, based on exactly that. You only had to enter the first part of your postcode, I printed out their "Native flora recorded from postal district BN1" list, I still have it. Then they removed the resource.

These days professional gardeners appear less precious about that in garden settings, on the basis that flowers from elsewhere such as the Balkans can also be great for fauna. Thing evolve with climate change.

But meeting the aspect you mention in broad terms, seed suppliers have options for differing environments.

Complete Seed Mixtures - Emorsgate Seeds

Complete Seed Mixtures Created and Wild Harvested Mixtures comprising Wild Flowers and Grasses Search Complete MixturesSearch Keyword Categories All categories Complete Mixtures Brush Harvested Meadow Mixtures Cornfield Annuals General Purpose Meadow Mixtures Meadow Mixtures for...

wildseed.co.uk

Have you used plugs at all, and do you have any recommendations ? I've been looking at https://meadowmania.co.uk/collections/wild-flower-meadow-wild-flower-plants for a boost this year, but they're not cheap.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Is the area in question on chalk? I assume around Eastbourne, you will be. If you're not sure, dig a few test-holes in different parts of the area to find out, and see how deep the top soil is. To produce a good wild flower environment, you need impoverished soil, so you may need to get rid of a depth of soil as well as the grass, down to the chalk, a 5 minute job with a mini-digger! The reasoning behind this is that grasses will struggle while the wild-flowers will tolerate these conditions. I've found chalk with a soil content (sub-soil), gives better results than bare chalk, which can take ages for the plants to establish. Should your test-holes show that the top soil is really deep, it would probably be best just to remove the grass with a couple of inches of soil and go with that.
If you go for seeding, wild-flower mixes tend to come with annuals mixed in, to give colour for the first year, as the perennials won't produce flowers until at least the second year.
However, your grant may enable to you buy "plugs", which should flower the first year. This is a good way to get things going quickly, and perhaps the pupils at your school could get involved with the planting? If you're on chalk, chalk downland plugs are obviously what you want. A chap called Johnny Gapper used to grow these from locally sourced seeds, in a little poly-house at Stanmer Nurseries. I don't know if he or anyone else still does, but there will be other places to buy them from.
As for shrubs, a few native specie hedging plants would do the job, either dotted about or indeed create a hedge on the boundary? They can always be cut back if they get too big.
If and when this project goes ahead, water everything regularly for the first year for the best future results.
Very good luck with this. Photos of progress always much appreciated.

The soil is not chalk as it is artificially raised above Eastbourne's old municipal dump. I have dug a foot or two down in the past but don't know how deep it is. The idea is indeed to get kids involved, but I am sure you know, schools are lacking a lot of the manpower they had even a year or two ago, therefore it may be a question of whether this is achievable. I am currently involved in a £10,000 grant from the govt/RHS which has been incredibly difficult due to the various stipulations about where and what the money can be spent on. We have over 300 plants arriving from March and seating coming in to turn a grey area green and loads of big planters for various herbs and flowers. This will be a headache to administer practically as once again, manpower is low and I am already relying on favours from volunteers. I really hope I can make a meadow, really there is nothing more beautiful in my opinion, but...... another difficulty is stopping the people who come in from the council from mowing stuff down that they shouldn't. Last year, I planted 30 trees from the Woodland Trust, with a local pupil who has so many difficulties socially it's untrue, and the morons mowed them all down in spite of emails and phone calls. It is maddening as they just turn up and get going and it's impossible to stop them if one is teaching or with students.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

It is confusing to me that it seems @Jack Straw and @Weststander seem to have slightly different advice. One is for shaving off the turf and another for mowing or scything until I presume the grass stock is weakened considerably. Would these amount to the same thing?

 

[Jack Straw]

It is confusing to me that it seems @Jack Straw and @Weststander seem to have slightly different advice. One is for shaving off the turf and another for mowing or scything until I presume the grass stock is weakened considerably. Would these amount to the same thing?

If the current grass in the proposed area is struggling due to lack of soil depth, you could just over-sow or plant plugs straight in. If the current grass grows like stink, I would remove it and some soil as per my previous post.
If you don't impoverish the soil, the grass will win.

 

[Weststander]

It is confusing to me that it seems @Jack Straw and @Weststander seem to have slightly different advice. One is for shaving off the turf and another for mowing or scything until I presume the grass stock is weakened considerably. Would these amount to the same thing?

I’m used to thin soil, we’re effectively on the Downs. Braybon the builders laying some turf onto subsoil/builders rubble 80 years ago leaves me little work to do. I only have to dig down 4” and it’s untouched chalk bedrock. It works …. @WATFORD zero has seen one of my mini meadows.

@Jack Straw is the professional. In places north of the South Downs or on the alluvial plain west of Hove he would’ve worked with deep loam or clay. Hence the bigger job to get a poor soil for a native meadow.

As he advised, you need to see what you’re starting with.

BTW, cornfield annual meadows (the year one ‘nursery crop’ to get things going, typically poppies, cornflowers, corncockle, thrive on a richer soil too. It’s the classic perennials/biennials meadows of grasses, yellow-rattle, vipers bugloss, knapweed, Lady’s bedstraw that requires poor soil to overcome dominant grasses.

 

[Weststander]

Have you used plugs at all, and do you have any recommendations ? I've been looking at https://meadowmania.co.uk/collections/wild-flower-meadow-wild-flower-plants for a boost this year, but they're not cheap.

I did belatedly in our back garden with Primula vulgaris and Primula veris as I love their colour in early spring.

On that verge, I did try a few Achillea terracotta as I love them, but I think they were smothered by the meadow.

I found you need to clear around plugs well and give the odd drink early doors if we’re in one of those long droughts (can start very early in the year).

 

[Weststander]

The soil is not chalk as it is artificially raised above Eastbourne's old municipal dump. I have dug a foot or two down in the past but don't know how deep it is. The idea is indeed to get kids involved, but I am sure you know, schools are lacking a lot of the manpower they had even a year or two ago, therefore it may be a question of whether this is achievable. I am currently involved in a £10,000 grant from the govt/RHS which has been incredibly difficult due to the various stipulations about where and what the money can be spent on. We have over 300 plants arriving from March and seating coming in to turn a grey area green and loads of big planters for various herbs and flowers. This will be a headache to administer practically as once again, manpower is low and I am already relying on favours from volunteers. I really hope I can make a meadow, really there is nothing more beautiful in my opinion, but...... another difficulty is stopping the people who come in from the council from mowing stuff down that they shouldn't. Last year, I planted 30 trees from the Woodland Trust, with a local pupil who has so many difficulties socially it's untrue, and the morons mowed them all down in spite of emails and phone calls. It is maddening as they just turn up and get going and it's impossible to stop them if one is teaching or with students.

On the verge meadow, I had to insert a load of small wooden stakes to stop the BHCC sit on mower bloke destroying it all. He starts on 1 February or 1 March! I painted them to help him, not damage his mower.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Have you used plugs at all, and do you have any recommendations ? I've been looking at https://meadowmania.co.uk/collections/wild-flower-meadow-wild-flower-plants for a boost this year, but they're not cheap.

I used Yellow Rattle plugs and grew them on in a cold frame before I planted them out, the result was a nice head start of plants which have since self seeded successfully and developed into a nice colony of healthy plants. I've also used daisy plugs to get a similar head start. Primroses spread nicely (and flower early and easily) taken from spurious seedlings in my front garden, I've also grown them from seed in very cold seed trays with glass on top, shaded by newspaper.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

On the verge meadow, I had to insert a load of small wooden stakes to stop the BHCC sit on mower bloke destroying it all. He starts on 1 February or 1 March! I painted them to help him, not damage his mower.

I used bamboo canes which were 6 feet high and I painted them with stripes for easier visibility. Still, they were all mowed down. These workers just simply raze everything in a similar way to 'gardeners' who get paid for work, haven't a clue about the plants they're dealing with and then ruin them with a hedge cutter

 

[LamieRobertson]

I used bamboo canes which were 6 feet high and I painted them with stripes for easier visibility. Still, they were all mowed down. These workers just simply raze everything in a similar way to 'gardeners' who get paid for work, haven't a clue about the plants they're dealing with and then ruin them with a hedge cutter

Fortunately i don’t have any apostrophes around my business name

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Fortunately i don’t have any apostrophes around my profession

Indeed. That quote was not intended as a slight on you or any other decent gardener. I used to do some part time gardening when I lived in Liverpool and often saw the devastation left by someone who had little to no knowledge of the plants they were hacking about. We suffer that too in school, and it causes me sadness when I see a shrub attacked viciously just when it's about to flower simply for the sake of convenience. It would almost be better for the shrub or tree not to be there, it works hard all year for this moment and then....

 

[Weststander]

I used bamboo canes which were 6 feet high and I painted them with stripes for easier visibility. Still, they were all mowed down. These workers just simply raze everything in a similar way to 'gardeners' who get paid for work, haven't a clue about the plants they're dealing with and then ruin them with a hedge cutter

I know wealthy folk with extensive grounds, their various contract gardeners (all about speed) destroy meadows and specimen perennials in the borders ... deeming everything a weed. Being a plantsman with wide knowledge (@Jack Straw or @jevs) is a rare thing.

In the schools case, buy those chunky round stakes and with a roughneck https://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-17lb-post-hole-digger/62496 prepare narrow deep holes, drive the stakes in. At centres narrow enough to block the mower. Otherwise nature will get to feast on the meadow.

 

[WATFORD zero]

On the verge meadow, I had to insert a load of small wooden stakes to stop the BHCC sit on mower bloke destroying it all. He starts on 1 February or 1 March! I painted them to help him, not damage his mower.

Just reminded me of a job for this week

I know wealthy folk with extensive grounds, their various contract gardeners (all about speed) destroy meadows and specimen perennials in the borders ... deeming everything a weed. Being a plantsman with wide knowledge (@Jack Straw or @jevs) is a rare thing.

In the schools case, buy those chunky round stakes and with a roughneck https://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-17lb-post-hole-digger/62496 prepare narrow deep holes, drive the stakes in. At centres narrow enough to block the mower. Otherwise nature will get to feast on the meadow.

I used 4 pieces of 2x2, about a foot long and painted white. He mowed around them I managed to catch him on the next mow and he then left it all year.

I'll put out a dozen this year and report back

 

[LamieRobertson]

Indeed. That quote was not intended as a slight on you or any other decent gardener. I used to do some part time gardening when I lived in Liverpool and often saw the devastation left by someone who had little to no knowledge of the plants they were hacking about. We suffer that too in school, and it causes me sadness when I see a shrub attacked viciously just when it's about to flower simply for the sake of convenience. It would almost be better for the shrub or tree not to be there, it works hard all year for this moment and then....

No ‘slight’ taken.…and i know EXACTLY what you mean

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I know wealthy folk with extensive grounds, their various contract gardeners (all about speed) destroy meadows and specimen perennials in the borders ... deeming everything a weed. Being a plantsman with wide knowledge (@Jack Straw or @jevs) is a rare thing.

In the schools case, buy those chunky round stakes and with a roughneck https://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-17lb-post-hole-digger/62496 prepare narrow deep holes, drive the stakes in. At centres narrow enough to block the mower. Otherwise nature will get to feast on the meadow.

They use a tractor for mowing. We couldn't afford a fence and one thing that may prohibit this idea is that we may need to buy a smaller mower for our site.

We have planted two small trees successfully in the last couple of years. A wonderful variegated Tulip Tree in memory of the Queen, and an Irish Oak which was donated by a leaving family. They had very large stakes considering the tree size and they are flourishing as even the groundsmen are not stupid enough to try to go through large posts!

'At centres narrow enough to block the mower. Otherwise nature will get to feast on the meadow'

I am not sure exactly what you mean by these statements.

 

[LamieRobertson]

I used Yellow Rattle plugs and grew them on in a cold frame before I planted them out, the result was a nice head start of plants which have since self seeded successfully and developed into a nice colony of healthy plants. I've also used daisy plugs to get a similar head start. Primroses spread nicely (and flower early and easily) taken from spurious seedlings in my front garden, I've also grown them from seed in very cold seed trays with glass on top, shaded by newspaper.

I have a project this coming April (I think) for ye yellow rattle plugs….all part of a ‘wild area’ of grass that is on a 45 degree bank…where I’ve planted various other bits n bobs (technical term) …generally well received, but I still get the odd moan from a leaseholder

 

[Weststander]

They use a tractor for mowing. We couldn't afford a fence and one thing that may prohibit this idea is that we may need to buy a smaller mower for our site.

We have planted two small trees successfully in the last couple of years. A wonderful variegated Tulip Tree in memory of the Queen, and an Irish Oak which was donated by a leaving family. They had very large stakes considering the tree size and they are flourishing as even the groundsmen are not stupid enough to try to go through large posts!

'At centres narrow enough to block the mower. Otherwise nature will get to feast on the meadow'

I am not sure exactly what you mean by these statements.

If the council mower has a width of 45cm, insert the centre of each stake 45cm apart.