Advice on a new garden meadow

[dougyreed]

Hi.

I would like to ask for some advice on a garden meadow if anyone is available to help please. I started it last year and have since been learning more about this topic and realising the mistakes I made!

I have created two garden beds for the meadows. My soil is clay and relatively damp (originally it was full of creeping buttercup).

The first bed (closest in the photo) I took up the turf, put around 10cm of green waste compost on and sowed with a 30% wildflower, 70% grass mix see here in October 2023. I don't think I went deep enough taking the turf up as the grass coverage by spring was very thick.

The second one I layed cardboard over the turf and then put about 10cm of green waste compost on in February 2024 before sowing with the same mix. The grass coverage here was much thinner as I don't think the original grass came through.

Since early July, I have kept the grass below 10cm using shears (I didn't want to mow as I had also put some spring/summer bulbs in).

My plan is now to mow it short in mid-August, create some bare ground and sow with yellow rattle (to keep the grassses back) and a 100% wildflower mix. Then I would keep mowing until early February before letting it grow until cutting in late July or until it has set seed.

If anyone is able to share their expertise and advise me on how to manage the meadow going forward including on my current plan, then I would be very grateful.

[Paul O]

Hi dougyreed

I'm not an expert, but have been experimenting with small patches in my garden over the last 6 years, and my soil is a damp, stony clay. In one patch I started a bit like you with a couple of inches of compost sowed in late autumn with a "perennials + annuals for 1st year interest" wildflower seed mix, scattered by hand and pressed in with a garden roller. By the time I sowed the seed there had been so much rain I guess much of the fertility had washed out of the compost, so the grasses were slow to come back up. In the following year the result was pleasing:-

June 2018

In late autumn and again in late winter/early spring, as soon as it was dry enough, I cut as low as possible and removed the cuttings, and in the following year it looked like this:-

June 2019

You can make your cutting regime as complicated as you like, e.g. doing a mid-summer cut on part of the meadow to allow any late-germinating plants to grow, but I have kept to just one low cut in November and another at the start of spring, always removing the cuttings. In the following years different species have tended to dominate - Oxeye Daisies for a few years, then Red Campion and Knapweed, and the annuals such as Corn Cockle and Poppy have disappeared.

When the grass looked like getting too aggressive I trod-in Yellow Rattle seeds on all the barest patches after the autumn mowing, and that has spread rapidly. It was exciting to see my first lot of rattle seed germinating:-

Late March 2020

Now, apart from the 2 cut-collects each year, I do little except going through the patch with a weeding blade on the scythe to keep things like Hogweed and brambles under control, and each year the patch looks slightly different (but never as jazzy as when the cornfield annuals were growing).

I hope that helps.

[dougyreed]

Hi Paul.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Your meadow is beautiful!

Very interesting to see how it has evolved and how you manage it.

Hoping mine will be similar to yours next year.

Thanks again!

[Donna Cox]

In case it's of interest, there's a very informative talk by RSPB's Adrian Thomas on creating and managing garden meadows on Moor Meadows youtube channel (first video in the Making Meadows section): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjHa28 ... 6FF5fPJ-gw

[dougyreed]

Thank you Donna.

I have watched a few of the videos on the channel but not that one so will do so.

Thanks also for creating this community forum as it is really useful and interesting.

All the best.