Wild Flowers

Leave the dead heads to reseed, those that aren’t perennials will reseed and grow again, I think you can buy packs of perennials though.

Oopsadaisy3
Thanks so much.

What a lovely idea, I hope your experiment works! I understand that some mixes can have too many seeds of one kind of plant, but you can always drop in poppies and cornflowers if it looks a bit samey. And you won't have to do much gardening, just let them get on with it.
With all the rain we've been having, I've been thinking of turning my raised beds into Japanese style moss gardens....

Gaunt47
Ooh that sounds nice, I am trying to keep the moss but lose the weeds in my cobblestone patio, it’s not going well as I have weeds poking through the moss?

I never understand the mixed wild flower seed collections. they are generic but only some are suitable for each region or soil type.
I scattered some on a bit of rough mown grass and the only ones which really took were primroses. They are beautiful and come up every year but what happened to the wild carrot, red clover, yellow rattle etc?.

No, don't deadhead them. They like poor soil too, so don't enrich it.

I seeded part of a very poor lawn, some came up, the ones I really wanted didn't so DH suggested growing them in a seed tray and planting the plugs.

I've got quite a lot, Grammareto, my neighbour identified them but I can't remember the names. I wanted cornflowers and poppies!

It is then mowed once at the end of the summer to spread the seeds.

I spoke to a farmer who grows wild flowers over a couple of acres.
He first said it wasn't much work.
Then followed it up with what he actually does, which was to re balance the seed mix each year. Based on the previous years display.
Plus after quite a few years of trying to get the 'perfect' mix, which generally means more poppies, corn flower and corn cockle, he found they just fade out of the mix, leaving the more aggressive and not so eye catching flowers.
So even though he knew his soil type, and what flowers liked to grow there, he couldn't guarantee what flowers would thrive.
His answer was to put a bigger percentage of the seeds he wanted into the mix and hope.
But even then, he had plug plants of the type he wanted waiting to address any shortages.

He concluded that on balance it takes just the same amount of effort to grow wild flowers as any other crop, just a different approach!

We bought a bag of wild flower seeds to scatter on quite a big area which had previously been used for potatoes. When I read the instructions it said to clear the ground or stones and weeds first, and rake over carefully .So we didn' bother, and like Callistemon's experience some flowered and others disappeared.
We had hoped to make something like this:
image.posterlounge.fr/img/products/600000/597685/597685_poster_l.jpg

I love to see wild flowers, growing wild so I'd let them do their own thing and re-seed.

I bought a large bag of compost which had wildflower seeds in it and was very disappointed with the results but then my very knowledgeable neighbour said it was probably the compost which was the problem as it was too rich.
I have also scratched the surface and put down about 6 packets of seeds but what came up were the more aggressive types and not the more attractive ones, although I did get one cornflower!
Someone gave me some Beebombs so I will use those soon

Fennel, I'm growing mine in an area of rather pathetic lawn which is in fact more weeds than grass.

That picture was my aim!

We do have a nice crop of celandines at the moment.

I will be sure to post a picture when they have appeared. I need to get on with sowing if I am to have any success!

Your picture was definitely my aim too Fennel!
I ordered some wild flowers seeds and some wild roses from a place with a romantic name somewhere in Derbyshire . The plants and seeds arrived and did very well. The following year I happened to be passing near the "farm" so called by.
Oh the disappointment when it turned out not to be a farm at all but a unit on an industrial estate which was closed.

Unfortunately many wildflower seed mixtures are full of non-native wild flowers, which kind of defeats the purpose of helping native pollinators.

Check out plantlife.org if you want to know more

plantlife.org.uk

Thanks Baggs that is a helpful website.

Namsnanny

Thanks for a really informative post.

Thank you Baggs

What I was aiming for was a wildflower meadow and it's just not going to work here!
I will have to work with what I've got.

Here is the site where we bought all those healthy plants. Just don't visit it, that's all I'm saying.
www.naturescape.co.uk/

I take it back. They have a tearoom and visitor's centre now.

Perhaps they were just starting out when you went past, Grammaretto.
It looks rather good.

No, they started in 1978 and has 45 acres, supplied the 2p12 Olympic Games with seeds and plants.

Sorry to keep harking back to France - our old potato patch was there. We gave up because of wireworm and colorado beetle. And sometimes mildew.
In the surrounding countryside you could see many of these beautiful 'flowering prairies.' I think farmers had to show that they qualified for subsidies by never letting fallow land lie unproductive.
Bees and butterflies etc liked them too.