Wild Flowers

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

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 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!

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 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?.

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?

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....

Oopsadaisy3
Thanks so much.

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.