In article , Neil Smith
writes
Let's start with meadow plants. I am little uncomfortable with the concept
of the perfect lawn. To build up a collection of wild meadow plants would be
nice. Is there a non-destuctive way that one can do this?

Simply mowing your lawn and taking away the cuttings and not fertilising
will over time make it easier for flowers to compete, and over the years
all sorts of things will arrive.

If you want to add to what is there, then to give it a fighting chance
you need to introduce plants rather than seeds, and perhaps keep them
clear of grass the first season.

I should have said earlier that you need to decide on what sort of
meadow - you could go for short cropped turf, and that will mean you go
for all sorts of low growing plants that can cope with this. My father's
lawn, which was entirely unintentional, had daisies, red and white
clover, self heal, birds foot trefoil.

Or you could go for a spring meadow, with wild daffs, crocuses, snakes
head fritillary, primroses, cowslips. You'd leave this uncut until the
daffodil leaves had died down and the cowslips hat released their seed,
and then mow.

Or you could have a summer meadow, with field geranium, vetches, white
campion, scabious, hard heads. This would need to be uncut till late in
the season to give things time to flower and then to set seed. You would
need perennial plants rather than 'cornfield flowers' like marigold,
poppy, cornflower, corncockle, as these are annual and rely on the
ground being dug over each year so that their seedlings can compete on
bare ground.

As to non destructive - presumably you are worrying about where to get
the plants/seeds from? There's lots of places selling wildflower seed -
try for example landlife in liverpool - and you could grow the seed like
any other garden plant in seed trays, potting on the seedlings till
they're large enough to plant out. Otherwise, there are a number of
nurseries specialising in wild flowers, or you may find your local
garden centre sells some.

By the way, bottom posting is the norm in this group. Please don't top
post as it gets the thread very tangled when everyone else is bottom
posting.


--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm