Notes On Creating A Wild Flower Meadow.
Wild flower meadows are not natural they have been created by the human use of the land or changes to an area of land normally through farming.
The key to a wild flower meadow is to create the conditions needed to suit a range of plants you wish to encourage.
Its important to remember that not all wild flower meadows are fully of colourful flowers often a natural wild flower meadow will be full of plants you would normally regard as weeds.
In Creating a wild flower meadow you are trying to produce the conditions to suit a number of species that often thrive in low nutrient and thin soils.
In practice this means to have an area lacking in nutrients so the wild flowers can compete with the grass Species present in the meadow.
In creating a wild flower meadow you need to remember a number of key points.
1. Not Dig the soil where the meadow is going to be established because that will turn up old weed seeds that will germinate and compete with the wild flowers.Its best to weed kill or remove areas of by hand or machine striping off about 10mm of turf and soil.
2.Sow and Small areas of wild flower seeds small patches about a metre square ideally near hedges and manikin these areas free from other plants and then the wild flowers will establish and spread from these areas over a number of seasons.
3.Pick wild flowers that are Suitable for the type of soil you have for example oxalis daisy is good for chalky soils.
4.When cutting the meadow area allow the cuttings to dry on the ground and then thrash them to separate the seed from the husks so you leave some seed for next years crop of wild flowers and to help them spread into different areas in your meadow.