I have an area of established wild grassland that I would like to plant with wildflowers. I do not want to cut it back due to other flowers growing there. area is about 150 square mts. Would I be better planting with plugs or seeds. How many plugs or how much seed.

islayhawk

islayhawk wrote:

I have an area of established wild grassland that I would like to plant
with wildflowers. I do not want to cut it back due to other flowers
growing there. area is about 150 square mts. Would I be better planting
with plugs or seeds. How many plugs or how much seed.

depends upon the plant, depends upon how densely
you want the plants to appear.

however, for an established field you will likely
have a hard time getting seeds established without
some kind of disturbing of the soil.

using plugs at least means you get some plants
established for sure, but then you may also be
needed to water for the first season until the
plants are established.

i do not recommend seed mixes unless you know
exactly what is in the mix as some plants are a
royal pain in the ass if they wander out of the
wild flower field and into more formal gardens
(and the quality of the mix may vary by company
or lot and can also include weed seeds -- it is
much easier to scan a batch of one kind of seed
and notice and remove any stray bits or wrong
seeds before mixing).

one approach is to just put in patches where
you disturb the soil and then spread the seed
mixes or plant the plugs, this results in a
more varied landscape which i think is more
interesting than a uniform field (and it's
much easier to water the patches when seeding
or putting in plugs if they are more together
than scattered all about). then as the field
grows and changes the seeds can spread around.


songbird

islayhawk wrote:

I have an area of established wild grassland that I would like to plant
with wildflowers. I do not want to cut it back due to other flowers
growing there. area is about 150 square mts. Would I be better planting
with plugs or seeds. How many plugs or how much seed.

You'd do best cutting it all back, just mow at your mower's highest
setting... don't worry about your previous plantings, the perennials
will grow back in spring and mowing will ensure all reseed. Your area
is about 1,400 sq ft, not much to mow.

I have a 4+ acre wildflower meadow (takes me a full day to mow), it
contains one spring fed 20' deep pond and several smaller shallow
vernal ponds, with lots of wildlife. Each fall I rough mow the entire
meadow to keep it healthy, mowing disperses the seed heads and covers
them with mulch... that's the time to add seeds (move some mowed
debris, scratch soil lightly, scatter some seed, then cover with mowed
mulch). High quality wildflower seed blends can be pricey so strew
very sparingly, don't need much anyway... best to plant several small
areas (naturalized) rather than all in one heap. I plant daffodils
and irises, they flower first and deer won't eat those. I mow about
six inches high so as not to harm the small critters (frogs, lizards,
mice, snakes, etc.), most scatter ahead from the mower vibration.
Mowing also prevents birds/deer from scouring all the seed heads
clean. Be very careful about what seeds you plant, you don't want to
plant any invasives.
Meadow:
http://i41.tinypic.com/m8cwwl.jpg
Rough mowing, I maintain walking paths all around the cicumference:
http://i40.tinypic.com/20s7j2b.jpg
Pond:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2vipbwh.jpg