Wildflower meadow success

Plan ahead for a glorious wildflower meadow

- Ruth Hayes

IF you like your sward to be bowling green-pristine, look away now. In the height of summer our lawns, front and back, are largely left to grow long and are full of assorted wild flowers, native grasses and insects including many species of bees, butterflies, grasshoppers and beetles.

This is the first season where the front lawn has reached something approaching natural maturity, and for all its apparent wildness, it has taken a fair bit of research and several years to get where we are today.

You can buy ‘off the shelf’ wild seed mixes from many places but you are better off, and will get a more authentic result, by purchasing a grass and flower seed mix specifically designed to flourish on your soil’s pH and nutrient load.

Generic seeds tend to only include a few mainstream popular plants, which risk taking over from naturally-occurring plants. Tailored mixes are widely available online from companies such as Meadowmania (meadowmania.co.uk, 0800 0854 399 )and Landlife Flowers (wildflower.co.uk, 01205 281902).