Tag: Wildflower Meadow

Wedge of Meadow

meadow

yellow rattle
Yellow Rattle

IT’S EXPECTING a lot to wedge my wildflower meadow between the potato & onion bed and the bottom corner of the garden. I’ve still got to to dig out the chicory that has muscled out all the competition on the strip alongside the hedge, on the right of my photograph. I weeded this attractive but invasive wild flower out along the other two edges the triangle in the spring and resowed with a wildflower meadow seed mix which has sprouted so luxuriantly that I now need to trim it to create a perimeter path.

I’m pleased that in the central area the yellow rattle is flowering again this year. The theory is that it will keep the grasses in check because it is semi-parasitic on their roots but the grasses are thriving.

meadow
Looking back from the bench in the corner

Meadow Update

Chicory in flower later in the year.

A QUICK update on the patch of wildflower meadow that I replanted on the 6 April; it looks even smaller now that the hedge is in full leaf and the surrounding Cow Parsley, nettle and Chicory have grown but you can see how effective our weeding out of Chicory and docks in the central area has been. At this time of year this would normally be wall to wall Chicory and dock.

The strip of turf at the back has established itself successfully and the grass seed in the meadow mix has greened the bare soil but I can see that there are also a lot of seedlings of Opium Poppy coming up, a species that wasn’t in the meadow mix but whose seeds are scattered all over our garden. It’s a plant that I like to see and to draw but I’ll have to weed them out to prevent their lush foliage shading out the wild flower seeds that I’ve sown.

Buttercups and Red Clover are already in flower on the strip of turf so I’ve got some idea of the final effect.

Next job; to mow down the Chicory to create a path around the edges. I don’t want it to spread into the central area again so it’s going to mean some more weeding and then I’ll sow the edges with suitable grass seed.

Instant Meadow

IT MIGHT not look very impressive but after all the planning, weeding and preparation this is my mini-meadow; a small area of turves from a friend’s wild flower meadow surrounded by an area sown with a mix of wild flower and grass seed collected in the same meadow. I’ve left the fringes as they are; a tiny strip of woodland edge where Cow Parsley and Snowdrops are already well-established.

We sowed about a litre of seed, a third of which had been kept in the freezer until today. This should convince it that after a long hard winter spring is really here and it’s time to burst into life.

I’ve seen photographs of my friend’s wild flower meadow in full flower and it appears to be dominated by Red Clover, Dog Daisy and Yellow Rattle. The latter is important because it is semi-parasitic on grass-roots, so it helps prevent the grasses becoming lushly dominant and shading out the wild flowers.

We’ve covered the seeded area with garden netting because I know our House Sparrows will love to dust-bathe in the fine tilth and they’ll then discover the seeds and start feasting on them.

Metablobs

After all that work in the garden I felt indulging in another tutorial from Create 3D like a Superhero, making a start on this ‘Dolphin Underwater Recon Vehicle’, simply constructed from ‘primitive’ shapes – squashed spheres, a torus and a skewed cube – which you can melt into each other by hitting the ‘Metablob’ button. Just the canopy and the shark style vents to add and I can take my model to the paint shop.

Much easier than installing a wild flower meadow.