Wildflowers: Not A Fan Of Tedious Digging, Weeding, Watering, Planning? Go Wild!

Wildflowers are for the gardener who hates the tedium, and constant work of maintaining a vegetable or flower garden, but doesn’t want to less than natural look of container gardening either. Most people are unfortunately under the influence of television commercials about how easy it is to maintain a wildflower meadow, or plot. As much as we’ve been led to believe, there is more to planting wildflowers then pouring a bag of mixed seeds, or unrolling a layer of wildflowers on the dirt. Wildflowers are, in all respects, much easier to maintain than a large flower or vegetable garden, but still require tender loving care to get started at least. Preparations for your meadow or plot require minimal effort that is often overlooked because of hyperbolic advertisement, and a lot of laziness too. If you want something you can scatter around and just ignore, my suggestion for you is buying plenty of fabric flora from Wal-Mart.

To begin with, plan your meadow, or plot just as your would any other garden. Pick a patch of land where they’ll have plenty of sunlight. Often, many people seed for their wildflowers right over their sod or grass. Bad move; wildflowers are often just weeds to most outsiders, so how will you be able to tell a weed from a flower, if you’re already mixed everything together? The best plan, is to remove all the plants from that one area. Pull all weeds, raise the sod, dig up the grass, and make sure all you’re left with is bare dirt. You can do this by hand, by solarization, or using weed killer. Solarization works well, but often depends on assistance from the weather. To kill the plants off in the area, you’ll need to first mow all the grass down in the area on the lowest possible setting of your mower. Afterwards, water the area well, and cover it up with a sheet of clear plastic, securing the edges with stakes, or large rocks. Afterwards, just let it sit that way, baking in the sunlight for six to eight weeks. Afterwards, rake all the dead vegetation away. Herbicide, or weed killer is the least recommended way to clear out your plot, since it can drift on the wind, and kill whatever else it might land on.

After you’re done killing off everything in that small area, you’ll want to till a shallow layer of the soil. Only go down about three inches, and be wary of helping any weeds resurface. If you have already used a weed killer, you can spray it over the soil again at this point to kill anything that might have recently popped up. Then, just take a rake, and level out the soil. Leave the lines from raking where they are, because they will help the wildflower seeds come in more contact with the soil, and hold them where they are. Since seeds are usually very small, it’s best to mix sand in weed them to be sure they’re evenly sown. After spreading the seeds evenly over the area, –the directions on the bag/can/roll will tell you how much should be used per area, –rake lightly again to mix the seeds into the soil.

After you’ve spread the seeds, and gently covered them by raking, you’ll want to water the whole area to keep it moist until the sprouts are all a few inches tall. Insulating the area will keep it warm; lightly mulch with straw, compost or peat. This also keeps birds from eating all your seeds. Weeding should only be necessary once in a while; as the flowers fill in, they’ll choke out the weed growth. If you’re planting flowers in a large area, for example, starting a meadow, it’s an excellent idea to also sow in some grass seeds, to fill in patchy areas. Rye grass, or Blue grass will fight for territory with your wildflowers, but Hardy Fescues, for Northern climates, or Tall Fescues for Southern are excellent and mingle well without clashing.

For maintaining your wildflower garden there are two important tasks. First, don’t be afraid to water if there’s a drought; you won’t spoil the plants. And most importantly, in the fall you want to mow down your meadow. Not with your mower on golf course setting! Set it as high as possible, remove the bag attachment, if you have own, and mow over the plot for your wildflowers. This assures that the seed heads fall to the soil so they can self-sow next year. If you have a smaller area for your wildflowers, you can do the same chopping by hand, or with clippers. It’s also important to remember that your perennials won’t bloom the first season, so don’t get your hopes up, and especially don’t plan on planting perennials only. As a small tip; the best time to get your plot or meadow ready, is fall of the spring before you plan to plant.