Now is the perfect time to plant wildflower meadows or lay wildflower turf

There are many reasons we love wildflowers, and here are just a few:

• Installing Wildflower is a cost-effective landscaping solutions as it reduces maintenance requirements once established, requiring only 1-2 cuts per annum.  In addition to maintenance saving, wildflower meadows are also cost-effective as the seed heads can be saved following the flowering period / dried out and re-used to enhance any sparse areas or used across other areas in the landscape as a wildflower meadow.

 

• Wildflowers provide fantastic forage for pollinators.  We use specific seed blends curated solely for pollinators which provide seasonal forage – however we include many  species which can be of great use for pollinators throughout the year to improve longevity.

 

• Wildflowers can be installed to provide immediate visual effect by using instant wildflower turf, however although this is extremely effective it will increase costs. The other option for meadow creation is to use seed mixes, this is extremely economical although will take 1-2 years to establish if  installing from new/fresh blank canvas or longer term if seeding within existing grassland to enrich areas into a meadow not amenity lawn.

 

• Including wildflower in landscaping scheme adds a significant boost to biodiversity net gain calculations (BNG)

 

• Aesthetically pleasing – a blanket of flowers – who doesn’t like that?  Humans and wildlife alike.

 

Here at dB Landscape Management we are working actively with leading horticulturists such as Kew (Wakehurst) on improving our knowledge on such maters like transforming amenity grasslands to native wildflower meadows for longer term sustainability, biodiversity net gains and cost-effective measures.

We have found that spring and autumn provide the best seasons to execute preparation and installation of wildflower meadows. This is due to average temperatures at this time of year to enable germination. Also the moisture content within the ground during spring and late autumn will reduce the expense of the initial management of wildflower seeding / instant wildflower turf laying which is expensive in terms of time and resources during the peak summer periods.

Although any soil ground condition can be transferred to wildflower, the most optimum conditions are that of poor nutrient inert soils. Should any ground condition have existing rich soils, this can be addressed with suitable soil preparation and introduction of lower nutrient soil to balance out for the a higher chance of success.

Why not take the leap and install wildflowers in your landscapes this year?  Get in touch, we can assist.

(Image Credit Wildflower Turf)