Establishing a Wildflower Border Using Seed
Rewilding and wild gardening have seen a huge increase over the last few years and you'll often walk past cordoned off areas of local green spaces that have been dedicated to creating a wildflower meadow.
We stock wild flower seeds here at the shop, just enough to cover a 10m2 space. Which should be more than enough to create a border in your garden.
Prepping, Sowing and Growing...
Wildflower seeds are best sown either in March or late September.
Remove all weeds and debris, if necessary use an appropriate systematic weed killer. If the area has been overtaken by weeds, it is important to reduce the number of weed seeds in the soil. It may be necessary to allow time for the first flush of weeds to germinate and then remove, before attempting to sow any wildflowers.
Wildflowers prefer poor soil with low quantities of nutrient because rich, fertile soils allow weeds and grasses to out-compete them - do not use compost or fertiliser on the area to be sown. Prepare the soil to a fine tilth once the weeds have been removed, ready for sowing your wildflowers.
Try not to disturb the soil any further as this may bring more weed seeds to the surface. Sow pure wildflower blends like ours at a rate of 3g/m2. It should not be necessary to rake the seed over as the light helps germination on many species.
The rate at which wildflowers appear will vary depending upon species -some annuals may take only a few weeks, while others (perennials) can take several months.
All annual species will flower the same year if sown during the spring or the previous autumn. Perennial wildflower species will establish during the first year of sowing and flower during the second year.
We have blended a combination of annual and perennial species in order to ensure that you get a flush of colour in year one from annuals, allowing perennial species to really shine alongside self-seeded annuals from year two onward.
