On 25/03/2015 13:01, Judith in England wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2015 10:04:51 -0000, "philgurr"
wrote:


"Judith in England" wrote in message
...
When I was in charge of the Ashton Wold wildflower project, most of the
plants that we used to reclaim small areas of wildflower meadow were
grown in the greenhouses, even those sown in the autumn for stratification.
Larger areas were strip seeded,
Phil

Good stuff - thanks: just the sort of experience I was hoping for.

Interesting: can you share the process you used please? Sewing - peat pots? -
separation - potting on etc.

All British wildflower seed is designed to overwinter outside so any
protection given was for our benefit. Seed usually sown in November
in old wooden fruit trays (you can just as easily use seed trays) in a
John Innes type compost but without any fertiliser and placed into
cold frames. Brought into the greenhouse in early March and by the
end of April, seedlings pricked out in the usual way into 7cm. pots of
the same compost as in the seed trays. Some seed gave an almost
100% germination (selfheal) whilst others gave just 10-20% (meadow
buttercup). These low germination trays were usually kept for another
year. Cowslip is particularly responsive to planting into grass meadows
but you must have an alkaline soil. Molehills are particularly useful for
raking flat and sowing annual wildflower seed (corn marigold, corn
flower, poppy etc.) in the autumn - but this has to be done every
year.
HTH
Phil



Fantastic: just what I wanted to know.

Many thanks.

I'd certainly sow some of the seed in situ, then slow germinating seed
may not come up till the 2nd year, and the plants that grow will have
deeper root systems than pot/ cell grown plants.