Having a sustainable garden means to cater for wildlife as well as making it a joy for yourself. Planting wildflowers is one way to do that.
Not only will the flowers feed a variety of insects, including bees, butterflies and flies, but also attract other animals to your garden that feed on them.
Including some very helpful predators that will feast on any common garden pests, keeping your plants safe. With a wildflower meadow you have no need for pesticides.
According to a government report, we have lost 97% of wildflower meadows since the 1930s. This has impacted on many insects, and led to biodiversity loss.
And insects are so important for many ecosystems, because they are at the bottom of the food chain.
So replacing the lost habitats in our gardens can help to stave off the decline in our insect population. If you want a sustainable garden, a wildflower meadow is a great way to cater for wildlife.
We will show you how to create a wildflower meadow in your garden in this step-by-step guide based on our own experience.
Size Doesn’t Matter
First, let’s talk about how big an area you need. Well, in this case size really doesn’t matter: any patch, however small, will make a difference.
If you’re lucky enough to have a big garden or are happy to give over a large part of your outdoor space, that’s great. But don’t feel like you have to convert your whole garden if you don’t want to.
Since we’ve moved to the country, we’re the proud owners of a fairly large garden and decided to have a sustainable garden and prioritise wildlife. So we turned a third of our garden into a meadow, another third we let grow wild, and the remaining third is covered by veggie beds and a polytunnel.
But any space that you’re happy to make a haven for wildlife will do.
How To Create A Wildflower Meadow Step-By-Step
Now let’s look at what steps you need to follow to create your very own meadow of wildflowers in your garden. It’s what we have done, and we are very pleased with the result.
1. Prepare The Ground
While you can just stop growing the grass and see what comes up, it’s unlikely that you will get a meadow full of wildflowers. It’s what the previous owners of our home did, and the result was mainly grass with a few flowers here and there.
If you want a variety of meadow flowers, some more work and effort is required. First you have to prepare the ground by removing the top layer of your turf.
This is best done in autumn before the soil gets too hard. The ground doesn’t have to be dry, but be prepared for a lot of mud stains on your gardening clothes.
The best tool to use is a simple spade. We cut the grass into stripes with the spade, which can then be rolled up easily. If the ground is quite wet, the soil will clump together, so you don’t want to make the rolls too big.
Otherwise, the rolls of turf will be very heavy. We learned that the hard way. On the other hand, it definitely was a great strength workout.
We used a wheelbarrow to get the turf from the meadow area to the skip, which made it a tat easier.
Depending on how big an area you’re converting, it might be necessary to get a skip. We got one, because there was just too much to dump it somewhere in the garden or put in the garden waste bin.
Besides, councils aren’t keen on loads of soil in their garden waste collection.
I won’t lie, it’s a lot of work and can take quite a long time if you have a larger area. It took us two full weekends. However, it has to be said that we dug up two thirds of our quite big garden, as we also had to clear the grass from the area where we grow our veggies.
But despite the hard work, it was also very satisfying, and we knew that it would give us a proper meadow, rather than just a load of grass with the odd flower.
2. Dig Over The Soil And Remove Weeds
Once the grass has all been removed, dig over the soil. This will show up perennial weeds, such as dandelions, that haven’t made it up to the ground yet.
Remove as many as you can, to give your wildflowers a better chance to thrive. We left the soil for a week to give more weeds the opportunity to come up.
The best way to remove these weeds is by digging out the roots. It was quite a big job for us, as there were loads of dandelions to dig up, but on the bright side, it was a good workout.
Don’t just throw the weeds. You can use them to make your own natural liquid fertiliser. Just throw them in a bucket until it’s half full. Then add water to the top, cover and let sit for a few weeks.
Strain the brown liquid into bottles and that’s it. Dilute it with water and feed your plants, not the wildflowers though, they don’t need feeding.
If you like coffee, then save the dandelion roots, wash them, chop them up in small pieces and roast them. You can then use them as you would coffee grinds. Dandelion coffee is caffeine-free and has a lot of health benefits.
3. Rake The Soil And Sow Wildflower Seeds
When you have removed as many weeds as possible, rake through the soils ready to sow your wildflower seeds.
You can get wildflower seed mixes in garden centres or online. We bought ours at Naturescape. What’s important is that you choose a seed mix that only contains native wildflower plants.
Apart from the flowers, you also need grass. In fact, a proper wildflower seed mix should contain mostly grass seeds. And one flower is very important and should be in any seed mix you get: Yellow Rattle.
This beautiful plant with yellow flowers is a semi-parasitic plant that gets some of its nutrients from grassroots. By having Yellow Rattle in your meadow, you can ensure that the grass doesn’t take over, so that your wildflowers will continue to come up every year.
How many seeds you need will depend on the size of your meadow. Naturescape provides a handy seed calculator so you can find out how big a seed bag you need.
Sowing the seeds won’t take too long; you just distribute them across the area according to the instructions. Our seed mix said to sow 5kg per square meter. It doesn’t have to be perfect; sowing approximately will work fine. That’s what we did.
4. Press Seeds Into Soil And Water
This is an important part of the process of how to create a wildflower meadow. You have to ensure that the seeds have good contact with the soil and won’t just be blown away.
In the wild, this service would be performed by animals. But you can easily do it yourself and don’t even need any equipment.
Just walk over the area stamping your feet slightly. The aim is to press the seeds into the soil, not bury them. They still need to have access to sunlight.
Depending on the size of the area you have designated to become a meadow, this can be a quick job, or a bigger one. But it’s not a difficult or hard one.
Once that’s done, give the area a good water. You can use a watering can or a hosepipe to do this. Ideally, use rainwater that has been collected in water buds.
But don’t worry if all you have is tap water; that will work too.
5. Cover The Area With Netting
The seeds will attract birds who will eat them, especially as autumn turns into winter and there is less food available for them. To prevent this from happening, cover the area with netting to keep the birds out.
You need to keep the net off the ground, otherwise, the birds might still be able to get to the seeds. We used bamboo canes and small plant pots.
Stick the canes into the ground at an equal distance. Then put the net over them and secure the ends in the ground using tent pegs.
It’s a rather tricky task, as you want the netting quite tight, but you don’t want to pull down the canes.
Then you have to make sure that the netting is fastened securely to the ground and doesn’t leave any holes where a bird might get through.
This was the part of the whole process I disliked the most, because you think you have managed it and then discover holes. Or you did one side and when you get to the other side, the one you have already done gets undone.
As hard work as digging up the turf was, I preferred it to this fiddly job. But we got it done in the end.
6. Check For Birds And Get Excited
The netting needs to stay up all winter and into early spring. Only once the meadow plants start to come up, can you remove it.
This means you need to keep an eye on the netting. Look out for any areas where it has come loose but more importantly, look out for birds that managed to sneak through.
We had a robin and a blackbird that somehow managed to get under the netting. Thankfully, we noticed them and rescued them and they were fine. But you don’t want a bird getting caught in the netting for any length of time.
As it gets warmer, you will notice green shoots appearing on the soil. That’s when you can start to get excited, because it means your wildflower meadow is about to burst into life. Grass and Yellow Rattles will be the first ones to appear.
Then as we get into summer, you should start to see more and more new flowers come up. For us, this was the most rewarding time, as it made all the hard work worth it.
Every year, you will see new plants come up. And the plants that grow will change over time too. In our first year, we had lots of beautiful red poppies come up. In the second year, oxeye daisies dominated.
In the third year, it started to get more balanced, although the majority of flowers were still oxeye daisies. We can’t wait to find out what next year brings.
One thing is for sure though, since we have the meadow, garden pests aren’t a problem any more. This is one of the best eco-friendly pest control methods out there.
Maintaining Your Wildflower Meadow
Now that you know how to create a wildflower meadow, let’s look at how you maintain it. And the good news is, it’s not difficult.
It will need to be cut down in late summer. The best way to do this is by using a scythe, an old age tool that has been used for thousands of years. And it’s a better choice for wildlife as it’s less disruptive.
I love scything our meadow, although it did take me a year or two to figure out the right technique. Thankfully, there are many helpful videos on YouTube to show you how to do it.
It now only takes me a few hours (maybe 4 -5) to cut the whole meadow. Leave the cut down plants for up to a week on the meadow.
This will ensure the seeds of any annual wildflowers drop to the ground so that they will come back next year.
But you have to gather them up after a few days, because you don’t want the plant material to decompose on the meadow and release nutrients into the soil. Fertile soil isn’t what wildflowers want.
This will make the grass grow better, which could stop the wildflowers from coming back. So gather up the cut down material and dispose of it in the garden waste bin, or make more homemade liquid fertiliser.
Once in winter, you want to run your lawn mower over it, on a higher setting. This will ensure the grass stays down, giving the flowers chance to come up.
And that’s it. Why not give it a go and make your very own wildflower meadow? The wildlife it will attract is amazing.
Do you want to know more about eco-friendly gardening? Read all about the benefits it brings in our guide.
