Wild Flowers in the Garden

Wild flowers are seemingly sorely missing in British landscapes and around the British countryside, so start by sowing your own.

Everything you have heard about Butterflies and Bees attracted to wild flower meadows is true. Although you can see flitting butterflies among other insects during the day, being strummed along by the humming of bees, then by dusk the symphony of insects starts and by midnight it is a full climax of fluttering moth wings and crickets. This is the roar of small things. This is the sound of what we are losing throughout our countryside.

These kinds of meadows are now considered one of the richest habitats on Earth. Per metre squared, these botanically diverse spaces contain more species than a tropical rain forest. These pastures have changed little since the middle ages. They are rich for many reasons: they are not fertilised with chemicals, or treated with pesticides.

Importantly, this cutting is staggered over the summer, rather than in one fell swoop, which allows many different species to live out their life cycles. This is the sort of gardening that should get promoted. It’s s a gene bank, a carbon sink, a habitat refuge and a grazers dinner. Just as importantly, wild flowered beds can be easily grown anywhere in your garden, school garden, shop garden, or anywhere else you consider. The opportunities are endless.

Any space you can give over to wildflowers in your garden matters, even if it is just a strip. Every bit of verge, every margin and edge, that is left free of chemicals, that is not mown to within an inch of its life, needs to be celebrated, not for neatness, but for its abundance of wildflowers.

Councils and local landowners do not hear enough about the bits we love. If your common land, parks and green spaces were left to grow long this summer, if your verges were not cut short, tell your local councillor how much you love them; equally you can write to Highways England.

You can collect your own seeds for wild flower areas: poppies are the simplest, as you can pick the seed heads, let them dry and then bust the seed heads open to reveal the seeds. Then simply spread them around the area of garden you wish them to grow.

To prepare an area for wild flowers is just as simple. It is best on bare ground, but you can sow on grassed areas too. Remove weeds, digging out any perennial thugs, such as, dock, creeping thistle, ground elder, or bindweed.

Rake the bed and mix seed with a little sand so you can see where it has landed. Split it into two batches, sowing one lot left to right, the other top to bottom (you are aiming for 1g per square metre). This should give an even spread. Rake the soil lightly and pray for rain. An annual mix will flower within three months; a perennial mix tends to come into its own in year two.

©Rob Knowlittle, March 2019 @drjohngardening