Wildflowers - to dig over soil before planting or not?

Personally, I can't see the point of destroying a habitat that exists, in order to create an artificial 'wild' habitat. On TV, a few months ago we did see a wildflower meadow, that was rotovated every year. To me, that makes for a lot of work, and little sense.

Seeds sown directly into grass will go nowhere. So you would need to germinate them in modules, and raise some little plants. You could then plant them in the grass. But wild flowers will struggle to survive against vigourous grasses. It might be feasible to pull grass away from around the plants, periodically.

You could dig over a very small area, and sow some seeds into soil. But germination will not be as good as with seed sown in modules, and you'll still have to deal with the grass when that grows.

A long term solution is to weaken grass, which you can do by cutting it yearly, and removing all the clippings. That's what haymaking does, and that produces a wildflower meadow, quite naturally.

According to a TV programme I watched recently, Yellow Rattle, a wildflower which is parasitic on grass roots, can be included in the seed mix to weaken the existing grass.  It needs a period of cold to germinate, so you would have to create bare patches in the lawn to sow it in and sow in autumn or early winter.  Cut the grass short just before you sow and rake bare patches, then cut again in February to let light in so the Rattle  seeds can germinate.  Then don't cut until the Rattle has set seed and self-sown (about early August)

Alternatively, how about spraying areas of only grass (ie avoidng primulas etc as far as you can) with glyphosate, then scarifying those when the grass is dead and sowing your wild mixture (which should include Yellow Rattle to prevent strong grasses taking hold again)?

Many thanks Gary / Bob ... that's very useful.

The trouble with a native wildflower meadow is that it's all over by July and looks dull and is, more importantly, of no use to pollinators for teh rest of teh summer and autumn.

I would echo the advice to raise plants form seed and plant them as plugs to give them a head start.  I would also include yellow rattle in the mix to weaken the grasses.  For late season interest and food for insects I would include echinaceas, heleniums, achilleas and other so called prairie plants.  These are perennial so you'd have to plan not to mow.   If you sow and plant annual wildflower seeds each season for a few years the flowers will eventually out compete the grasses and you'll have an insect haven.

Hopeless Gardner wrote (see)

.. full of couch grass, golden rod and some shrubs...

I have no experience in trying to grow wildflowers in couch grass. It doesn't sound promising, though some wildflowers are more robust than others.

You may already have one - the goldenrod. It's not an English wildflower, but it is a wildflower in North America. You could lift and divide some clumps of that, and spread them around. I can remember the 'old-fashioned' goldenrod. My parents had a lot of it. It was a magnificent wildlife plant, about 4' tall, and always full of bees. Today, it's almost impossible to get hold of. The only ones for sale in garden centres are weedy little things.

It's a matter of experience, you'll need to discover what will grow in your situation, and what won't.

Can anyone tell me where to get cows in Central Manchester?

Gary Hobson wrote (see)

It's a matter of experience, you'll need to discover what will grow in your situation, and what won't.

Totally agree. Our wildlife meadow was created on an established lawn with wildflower plug plants and plants I germinated myself. Three years on the meadow is producing and looking well but the grass is just too dominant. This Autumn we are going to start again by killing off the grass, replacing the rich soil and scattering a mixture of wildflower seeds, not all native as I want to create a longer lasting flowering period.

I can tell you that I have done this several ways, sowing in existing lawn and letting it all grow up and planting plugs in this existing area. Both worked to some degree but you definitely need to grow plugs for it to be really successful in my experience. If you have a small patch then this may be ok but is extremely labour intensive on a large patch.

After two seasons of 'ok' but not brilliant results I de-turfed & dug over the area sowing perennial and annual wild flowers. I have to say that this has proved so much more successful than trying to improve on what was already there for me.

I do however think that it depends on what is already in situ? Here the area that I have developed was previously a mowed lawn, by just letting the tough & vigorous Rye grass grow prevented many of the wild flowers that I wanted to grow compete with it! If you are trying to enhance an already wild country area with less aggressive grasses then you might just get away with sowing some seed into it??... If this isn't the case I would start from scratch myself...

My latest post on my blog (link below) does actually feature my new wild flower lawn so you can see my first year results from a complete de-turf for yourself?...

Cheers

Higgy

http://higgysgardenproject.blogspot.co.uk/

Higgy, that's excellent info thanks. I've decided to go with the full dig over with a rotivator and start from scratch ... this looks like the best option. If I can get mine to look anything like your photo's in the blog I'll be very chuffed.