Description
(Contains grass)
Create your own classic meadow, contains a delightful mixture of 20% wild flowers and 80% grasses for quick and easy establ
ishment. Providing colour over a long period.
Wild flower native species: Red Campion, Black Medick, Common Knapweed, Oxeye Daisy, Ribwort Plantain, Yarrow, Field Poppy, Ladys Bedstraw, Meadow Buttercup, Cowslip, Salad Burnet.
Grass species: Browntop Bent, Strong Creeping Red Fescue, Crested Dogstail, Chewings Fescue and Sheeps Fescue. 25gm pack, enough for 5 square metres.
How to sow:
Wildflowers prefer a poor soil with low nutrients, before sowing remove all existing weeds from the area to be sown, then prepare the soil to a fine tilth ready for sowing. Sow seed mix at 5 gms/m2 and only lightly rake into the surface. The nurse grasses within the mixture will appear within 7 - 10 days; the wildflowers may vary depending upon species - some may take only a few weeks, while others can take several months.
Maintaining a Wildflower Meadow / Garden:
The nurse grasses will be the first to establish within a few weeks, they will be quite open to allow the wildflower seedlings to germinate in the spaces around the younger grass seedlings. In the first year of sowing, the nurse grasses will require to be cut twice during spring at 5 cm, leave uncut during the summer, then a further couple of cuts in the autumn, again at 5 cm. It is unlikely that any of the perennial flowers will appear during the first year of establishment. Once the flowers are established during the second year, there is a slight change to the cutting regime in that the first cut in the autumn should be done without the mower box attached, thus allowing the mature seed heads to shed their seed back into the soil and leave for 2 - 3 weeks. During this time, the seed heads will dry out and release seed back into the soil, the final cut will tidy the whole area and remove any dead material. It is important to return the fresh seed from each year's harvest back into your soil, as this will help to maintain a regular supply of new plants for future years.