Planning your Wildflower Garden Plot
Choose a quiet space away from areas of high use to ensure plants don’t get trampled.
Pick a sunny spot. Most wildflower species do not flourish in the shade.
Choose an area with poor to moderately fertile soil with few weeds or vigorous grass.
Creating your Wildflower Garden from Seed
- In year 1 let the vegetation/grass grow in your chosen spot during the spring/summer months to see which flowers come up naturally.
- In late summer/early autumn mow the plot short and rake off and compost all vegetation.
- Rake the ground to create patches of bare soil. Remove unwanted weeds including dock leaves.
- Sow seed at 2g/m2.
- Don’t rake the seed into the soil – they need to lie on the surface. Now trample where you have sown, to press the seed firmly into the soil. Water the area regularly during dry weather.
- Then follow the section below on Managing your Garden.
Creating your Wildflower Garden from Plug Plants
- The best time to plant your plugs is in the autumn, ideally in September or October before the ground becomes too wet and cold and the weeds have started to die back. Plug plants can be transplanted in May and June but they will often require more watering if planted at this time of the year.
- Ideally use plug plants that are six months to a year old.
- Make sure the roots of the plug plant can be seen at the bottom of the pot before planting out.
- Before planting, strim/cut area and remove cuttings. Another option is to dig out a small patch of turf with a spade, turn upside down and replace. This exposes the soil and kills the grass.
- Dig a hole the same size and depth as the plug.
- Invert the pot and gently tap and squeeze it to remove the plant and insert it into the dugout hole.
- Put the soil back around the plant and firm well with your hands or a foot.
- Water in the plug plant.
- Mark the location of the plant plug with a garden cane or similar. This will allow you to easily find the plant again for watering and checking progress.
- For more than one plug: plant in clumps of 2-5 plants per sq m.
Plug Plant Aftercare
- If planting in May and June regular watering will be needed for six weeks after planting, particularly if the weather is dry, as drought is the commonest cause of plug plant failure.
- Keep the grass short around the plants for the first year after planting out. This reduces competition and helps the plant plugs establish better.
- If you start to see slug damage, you may need to use slug control – try to use animal friendly methods.
- Regularly remove thistles, docks, tree seedlings and any grasses that look like they are taking over the patch.
- You may want to top up your patch in its first years of life by sowing seed or planting more plug plants.
- Once the plug plants are established follow the section below on Managing your Garden.
Managing Your Garden/Meadow
Your garden/meadow won’t need a lot of care and attention once it’s established. A bit of regular maintenance should be all that’s required. This includes:
- From September until the grass stops growing, you should mow your wildflower garden plot regularly to a height of 2-4cm, otherwise seedlings will be shaded.
- In year 2, start mowing again in early spring and stop after March to allow wildflowers to grow.
- Note that many wildflower species will take a couple of years before they flower. You may want to top up your plot by sowing more seeds or planting wildflower plugs to fill any bare patches.
- The wildflower garden plot can be mown from September. Remove unwanted weeds and dock leaves. Mow the wildflower garden plot to a height of 5cm. Leave the cuttings for a few days to allow any wildflower seeds to be shed and then rake off the cuttings.
- In subsequent years, mow when the grass gets up to 15cm, but do not cut shorter than 5cm. As above do not mow between end of March to September. Always rake cuttings off.
- As an alternative to cutting in late summer, you can leave the patch over winter before cutting in early spring. Your garden’s dead stems will provide excellent insect hibernation spaces over winter.