If you’ve been following along with this series on turning your lawn into a wildflower meadow, you’ll know that sowing wildflower seed isn’t essential when creating a wildflower meadow.
However, it can help to speed up the establishment of biodiversity. So I want to show you how it’s done.
Watch the video and read on for more details:
Why sowing wildflower seed can be a good idea?
Reducing the nutrient content of our soil increases the likelihood that wildflowers will establish. That’s because in nutritious soil, grasses outcompete wildflowers. But in low-nutrient soils, wildflowers have the edge.
So simply removing nutrients from the soil by cutting our grass in late July and removing the clippings (this removes nutrients) can lead to a biodiverse wildflower meadow over the period of a few years.
However, this can be a slow process…
Sowing wildflower seed can greatly speed up this process. And while wildflower seed costs money, it’s an easily affordable option for many.
It’s usually around 50p per m2 for a small garden meadow.
When to sow wildflower seed?
If you decide to sow wildflower seed into your meadow, the best time to do so is autumn (September – December).
This timing exposes the wildflower seed to cold and wet conditions over winter, which is essential if they are to germinate successfully in spring.
Some seeds (such as Yellow Rattle) are especially dependent on this cold period to germinate in spring. Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor) is of particular importance in wildflower meadows as it parasitises grass roots, which reduces the vigour of the grass and enables wildflowers to proliferate.
For this reason, my opinion is that sowing in spring makes little sense, unless you do not intend to sow Yellow Rattle, in which case it may be an option.
Let me know how you get on
I hope you find this video helpful. I’d love to hear how it affects your decision on whether to sow wildflower seed in your own lawn/meadow.
Please do let me know how you get on in the comments.
Happy wilding.
Joe
