My wild garden

The flowers are very tiny indeed, and so close to the ground that the mower misses them. I will take a pic of them and see if I can upload the photo so the keen gardeners can take a look and might be able to identify it. I woul love to know what they are.
The muse took hold again!......

The Perfect Lawn

Now why would you want a perfect lawn?
Folks may say it looks fantastic
But without the daisies and speedwell and clover
You might just as well roll out some plastic.

mishap Lovely! and quite so!

Like that, Mishap!

Would your 'blue' lawn be made up of Creeping Charlie (ground ivy)? - Although the tiny flowers are more soft mauve than blue. It's a very busy ground plant and loves to be mowed in order to spread! Probably Speedwell though.

If dandelions were rare, we'd all want them in our lawns.

Bags, I once saw a dandelion plant for sale in the herb section of a garden centre. I thought it might be a joke but it had a label on it and seemed serious. Dandelion coffee anyone?

We went to the Huntingdon Gardens near Los Angeles a few years back. Just amazing. But then we discovered a corner entitled wild English garden - with a few miserable native perenials and yes, a patch of dandelions, lol.
And when we went on from there to Maui (Hawai)and Kaui- we were admiring the profusion of huge ginger plants with the most amazing flowers, and the 'natives' were complaining that they grow like weed!

It's like straight hair versus curly - we are never satisfied! Must say that with advancing years I am becoming much more philosophical about both - plants and hair - and accept that what will grow best here is best, and to stop battling against nature.

Ginger plants are a weed in New Zealand.

I have identified it! I picked a flower and compared it with lots of other images on the web. I could see it was not speedwell because of the way it grows on individual stems and the fact that it has 5 slim petals, not 4 fat ones.

So.....it is Isotoma fluviatilis - otherwise know as Blue Star Creeper. Apparently in the US some people deliberately plant it as a lawn because it does not need mowing and does not need much water - so I will just let it take over I think as I love it!

Oh, how lovely, mishap. I'm envious! We had a bit of that between flagstones at our Oxfordshire house and it was always one of my favourites. Enjoy!

I wonder if I could get it to grow here?

I'm envious too, Mishap. I wonder if it would do well in a gravel garden?

There are lots of references to it on the net. You can apparently buy it to plant a lawn, but I cannot imagine where - it is so tiny you would go home with almost nothing.

It is very pretty indeed and we walk all over it and it just bounces back up - I feel very lucky to have it - especially as it has just popped up from nowhere. And we are hopeless ignorant gardeners, so anything that takes care of itself and looks so lovely gets my vote!

Along with the forest of ox-eye daisies that have appeared from nowhere, we have been very lucky this year.

I am wanting to set a banked area in our garden over to a wild garden, at the moment it resembles moorland. Does anyone have any tips on where to start?

Mow it, rake it, leave it, and see what happens, glass. That's what I did. Had to start with a scythe (you'll need a 'ditch blade'; can lend you a book if you're interested). I suppose a strimmer would do (noisy things).

Alternatively, put some old carpet over it for a time to see what's at soil level.
we did that too and planted some things, but the natives resettled .

I love granjura's wild garden - she is my expert on all things horticultural (my daughter is her equivalent in NZ and is becoming very knowledgable about the local species.). I suppose the mountains are my garden now - I have only a balcony because I am away from home so much. I tried to identify some of the wide range of flowers on my walk yesteday, but I gave up and decided just to enjoy them. There were bushes covered in dog roses and I found my first wild strawberry (fraise des bois) of the season. l love foraging! I haven't seen any bluebells here but there are some lovely blue/violet bell shaped flowers - hare bells? The flashes of blue I see everywhere are forget-me-nots.
My sister has a very small back garden , about as big as her living room, but she gets immense pleasure from it and it is a riot of colour. She never buys plants but swaps them with the other keen gardeners in her women's group.
She has a buddleia to attract the butterflies and has even managed to keep a little uncultivated spot to attract the birds.