On 22 Aug, 22:57, kay wrote:
Ragnar;898166 Wrote:



If you missed Countryfile on BBC this afternoon try and find a repeat
because there was a good item about wild flower meadows.

I am quite sure you would need to scalp the ground and sow wild flower
seed.
If you just leave it (mowing occasionally) it would revert to wild
flower
meadow eventually but it could take many years.
HTH
R.

Scalping the ground is a way of removing the top layer of fertile soil
and providing low fertility conditions where the grass is less able to
out-compete the other plants. If the soil is already unfertile enough,
there is no need. Equally, there's no need to sow wild flower seed if
there's enough of a seed bank in the soil - which there may well be if
gorse is growing.

Wild meadows aren't in fact wild - they are the result of grazing and
mowing which keeps down competition from scrub.

Meadows are grown for hay - animals graze the first spring crops of
grass, then the grass is left to grow all summer, mown, and the mowings
taken away. You can imitate this pattern with a lawn mower. Mowing will
keep down the gorse, and the flowers you would be looking at are summer
flowering ones which seed by August so they have dropped their seed by
the time you do the autumn mowing. Quite which ones depends on your soil
type.

If you want spring flowers instead, then run it as pasture - allow
"grazing" from end May onwards.

You can further reduce fertility by sowing yellow rattle seeds - yellow
rattle is parasitic on grass.

I'd be inclined to keep the rabbit proof fencing - that way *you* can
decide when you want to "graze".

--
kay
What you see on the TV is not a wildflower mew.
The above is true. If you mow your grass, you must take the cuttings
(and thus the nutrients away). This needs to be done once a year after
flower seeds have fallen. The grass wil be weakened by this
treatment.
You will get "wild fowers" OK but probably the weeds growing in your
garden, ie loads of thistles, nettles, buttercups, dandelions, sorrel,
clover etc. Very few of the "pretty" flowers.

These "Wild flower meadows" you see on the TV are complete Bull S***.
They are no more wild than your vegetable plot.
The flowers aren't wild either being from imported seed. Most of the
seed you buy is from E. Europe and is actually damaging to our
environment.
If they were to be benificial to the environment, there would be no
planting of non-local seeds/plants.

So, either you damage our environment or you just get a weedy patch
that's benificial but not like th crap you see on the TV