Wild flower meadow from scratch

Hi,

Last year I decided to change a disused strip of my garden into a "wild flower meadow" type affair. It is a strip of grass about 2.5 meters wide by 10m long, which i let go wild last year as it backs on to my pond and could act as a refuge for frogs/toads and any other wild life that wants.

In order to change it into a wild flower meadow, after much reading around it looked like the best thing to do was start from scratch, i.e. dig up what is there and sow fresh seed. I have now dug over the area and removed as much grass/weeds as possible and intend to leave it for a few weeks and keep up with the weeding to remove as much as possible (as per info I've read elsewhere).

Its now struck me that I've acquired loads of packets of wild flower seed, but none of the packets actually say they contain grass seed. Do i need to add the grass seed separately? Do i need grass seed at all? Is the grass seed included in the pack (Sutton's wild flower mix amongst numerous others).
Is there a certain grass i should use? or have i just wasted loads of time clearing the area?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Hi Skinmonkey,

Need more background info, what type of soil are you on, is it acidic or alkaline ?

You've probably done the right thing with taking up the old grass, you don't want an invasive or dominant grass like couch or rye grass.

Wildflower mixes may contain grass seeds, if they were just harvested from a meadow, pretty unavoidable. But hopefully they will be the species that co exist with the flowers, fescues, timothy, bent etc.

It wouldn't hurt if there were no grass seeds to start with though, it would give the flowers a chance to get established before the competition comes.

Species like Hayrattle & Ivy Leaf Broomrape though, need grass plants to co exist with.

 

Skinmonkey, it might be too late now seeing as you've already stockpiled the seeds, but I did some research into this a couple of years ago. There are online suppliers that sell you wildflower meadow seed mixes. They mix native grasses with flowers in the correct proportions, and many suppliers do different mixes to suit different soil types and light levels etc. It might be worth googling 'wildflower meadow seed' to find some suppliers, if only for ideas and to see what other options you have.

Another thing to consider is the how fertile the ground is. Grass tends to be more vigorous that many wildflowers, so the usual advice is to starve the ground (remove the top soil) to give the flowers an advantage (the flowers tend to have deeper roots so are better adapted to poor soil than grass). Also by using the native grasses rather than the hybrids and foreign ones that are typically used for lawns, they are less competitive so give the flowers more chance.

 

Thanks for the help chaps.

The soil pH is ~5.5-6.

After reading some articles and on the advice in them I double dug the ground, with the idea of bringing up the less fertile lower soil (time will tell if it was worth the effort).

I think I'll just have to give it a go and see what we get, I've nothing to lose. I'll keep you posted.