I love the smell of Tiger Balm in the morning OR The JOYS OF SUMMER

Here some info. Jeni - and is it 'mowed' or 'mown'

apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=446

One of the issues with wild flower meadows is that they need to be mown after the flowers have bloomed and set seed. Or mowed is it?
The other is fertility. On a lush well fertilised bit of lawn the grass will out compete wild flowers. On impoverished soil you get great wild flowers and lousy grass.
On chalk uplands the traditional farming method was to graze the sheep on the uplands by day and then take them down onto the agricultural land which they would "fertilise" at night. Thus the uplands were slowly deprived of nutrients and now are great flower habitats.
There is a wild flower called Yellow Rattle that is very nutrient hungry apparently, so that is a good one to sow. It will strip the nutrients and make it harder for the grass to succeed.
Cowslips seem to compete fairly well with grass, so worth a try as plugs.
But again - you see them on motorway side slopes, which are presumably not well endowed with nutrients.
Dog daisies are pretty determined - I once deliberately planted some and they are intent of world dominion. So they might be another good one. But they will beat everything else into submission if mine are anything to go by. Nothing delicate about them.
Poppies need broken soil - but if you have some, just a scattering of seeds and away they go.

Nothing delicate, except looks perhaps, about any plant that grows in nutrient poor soil, surely! Those are the Survivors if they can thrive where even grass finds it difficult! One of my favourite flowers is the harebell. Very dleicate-looking but it grows in harsh places.

My 'lawn' is more moss than grass and what grasses there are are the kind of wild grasses people don't usually want in their gardens. Maybe that helps. I haven't planted or sown anything in it. Flowers have just appeared so I expect they seeded themselves and thrived during the quarter century when the garden was neglected. Perhaps many garden lawns are just too well cared for, de-mossed and so forth so the grass has taken over. I always favoured "greensward" rather than grass. Worked in my Oxfordshire garden too, though the wild flowers that thrived there were different from what does well in Argyll.

You have to expect things you don't want a lot of too, such as dock and sorrel.

A scattering of primrose seedlings has appeared in my lawn - small square one in front garden, near a busy road, no woods close by for them to have spread from, no-one that I can see has primroses in their front gardens. they look like wild pale yellow ones.

They won't survive there, as I can't leave the lawn uncut for them to develop and grow. Will they transplant OK to somewhere more convenient? Could be tricky getting a plug out of the matted grass roots.

Yes, transplant them, elegran. I did that with some cowslips in my last garden and they did really well, especially as I carefully collected some seed and sowed that in pots.

An alternative would be to mow around them. If you have clearly mowed some of your grass but left patches where the flowers are, why would anyone mind?

Beats me why people fuss about long grass anyway. If you look closely, flowering grass is actually very beautiful.

Lost a post somewhere, could have sworn I sent it.

Bags They are so widely scattered that it would just look as though I had been drunk in charge of the mower, and the dandelions would take over the long patches. They are barely kept in check by he mowing.

As a child, I lived in a village named Weston Favell. A farmer had a meadow that was thickly carpeted with cowslips. I used to dance bare-foot in Cowslip Meadow. Such a lovely memory of some sixty five years standing.

I may be right or wrong but it seems to me the thinking nowadays is for more natural , wildflowers etc. we have got a heck of a lot of moss in our grass but I am bound to say I don"t dislike it
a] it is quite pretty
b] get nice green colour which our garden struggles for

Our garden has just seemed to evolve in own little way and I am chuffed to bits with it we have only been doing it for about the last 6 yearsI

I like the sound of your garden, nonu - and am very fond of moss, too!

BUTTERNUT I would love you to see our garden , you are a gardner too ? It is a wonderful pastime isn"t it

It is indeed. I like the idea of letting a garden evolve - with a helping hand, of course.

Absolutly , and of course a fair dose of "tomato feed " well thats what I use , seems to suit my plants

Mr soop whispered in my ear...'are you awake?' Which of course, I wasn't. And then he added...'there is a near new-born fawn with it's mother, and they are standing beside the fence...' I leapt out of bed - forgetting that I need a crutch, and stood wide-eyed in wonder at the long-legged wee creature not many yards away. Rory was not impressed. He yowled for food and wore a cross-patch expression as we oohed and ahhed. He certainly was not used to being kept waiting...

soop, so lucky!

How absolutely wonderful, soop. What a start to the day!

Next time the wee one visits, Mr soop will have the camera ready. Previous fawns, have been left dozing amongst the ferns. In dappled sunlight, they are well camouflaged. Mother can be absent for long periods. It is such a treat to witness the reunion between the two. There's an awful lot of nuzzling and licking.

SOOP that is incredible , how lucky you are

Nonu Recently, mother deer was being fed chopped apple by Mr soop, when Rory the feral cat started to fuss. When Rory went the otherside of the fence to investigate, the deer chased him a wee way into the undergrowth. Cat not fond of competition.

SOOP what a great story , love it it must be very rural where you live . See we wouldn"t get anything like that here as we live in the town centre , not that I am complaining you understand , but there must be something special about seeing wild animals so close to your home .

Nonu We live in Kintyre - the remote peninsula on the west coast of Scotland. Across the road is the sea. The inner Hebridean islands of Jura and Islay are big, bold and beautiful. To the side of us are rocks. To the back, is an ancient forest. The deer have been visiting us for some years. The largest family group of seven, came to the fence to be fed during the bitter cold winter of last year. An otter swims down the burn that runs through the forest. It sometimes sits on a huge rock on the beach. We've watched it swim and catch fish, eat the catch, roll around in the pebbles, and then return to the burn.
PS our nearest M&S is a three and a half hour drive away.

soop who needs M&S when there is a new fawn to enjoy! How wonderful.

Mules are still bred here, and last week we saw a very new foal in the field nursery. Deep chocolate brown coat and the most beautiful big ears and wobbly legs. Magic.

SOOP , love the sound of it all , forgive my ignorance but is kintyre the one McCartney sings about ?

Nonu it most certainly is. Paul and Linda had a farm just outside Campbeltown. In the town is a beautiful garden in memory of Linda. Paul loves Kintyre. Not a difficult thing to do

Butter It's the spindly, long legs that do it for me. As for M&S - they do a super tikka masarla, which we treat ourselves to on rare occasions...and some of their puds are delicious for a special treat.