Wildflower meadow basics

OVER the past 50 years, a fall-off in numbers has been noted among many groups of our native insects, including common butterflies, moths, hoverflies and bees. Gardens have become increasingly accepted as important habitats where these insects can now hole up and find their desired sources of nectar and pollen. As I mentioned last week, a wildflower meadow is one of the greatest insect-attracting features you can introduce into your site. If you desire an area in your garden full of wildflowers, you will have to prepare the soil well in advance of seeding. Unlike most of the work you will do in your garden, such as adding fertilisers and organic matter to improve your soil, a wildflower area requires none of these amendments, instead preferring lean and impoverished soil. If you are blessed with fertile soil that grows good crops of grass, shrubs or vegetables, then you should aim to make it less fertile in advance of sowing your wildflower seed. The usual way to go about this is to â€Å“stripâ€Â, but in the manner of Monty Don rather than of The Full Monty. Soil stripping With this method of impoverishing the soil, you strip off any grass or weeds present, as well as scraping off 10cm (four inches) of topsoil. Depending on the size of your site, you will need a shovel, a digger and a dumper for this step. All stripped, you can then fill up your levels again with poor soil or subsoil; the type usually found six to ten inches below the topsoil on most sites. This strip method has the added advantage of removing the grass, as well as the weed seeds that so often result in the type of unwanted growth that crowds out your wildflowers. I should add that for true wildlife appeal you should never clear the ground right up to your siteâ€â„¢s boundaries if it includes any existing plant life, rock clusters or felled wood whatsoever. This leaves shelter points for many forms of wildlife. Shelter can be anything from a pile of rocks for reptiles and invertebrates to a woodland edge for birds and small mammals. Birds like edges and a mixed shrub planting between a background of trees and an open, sunny area accomplishes this. Many wildlife gardeners will even go to the trouble of enriching these edges with piles of brush, rocks, leaf mould, shredded bark and rotting logs, to appeal to a wide variety of small animals. Final steps before seeding One final push must be made against any possible unwanted growth. Your choice for this control will depend on two main factors: the size of the area and your like or dislike of chemical weed killers. On one hand you can opt to till the soil by digging it over with a fork or rotovating it, leaving it fallow for a week or two, and then spraying off the emerging weeds with a herbicide such as Roundup. Or if you are more organically minded (easier in a small area) you can hoe off the newly emerged weeds as they appear. Herbicide spraying or the hoeing method of weed control followed by digging the area over with a fork or rotovating it should ideally be carried out over three or four occasions before your soil preparation can move onto its next stage. All this weed removal may seem excessive but it is nothing compared to the methods adopted by many professional wildflower growers who are known to leave the ground fallow for a whole year, allowing the complete eradication of weeds before sowing their wildflowers for seed harvesting purposes. Use the waiting time between each session of weed removal to consider other features you may like to include in your wildflower meadow. Perhaps consider the creation of a pond, as it also is wonderful for attracting wildlife. Frogs, toads and an array of insects will be right at home next to this water feature, and birds and small animals might also visit. All this is in addition to your pond being used also as a focal point for the whole garden. Iâ€â„¢ll be back next week with the seeding and plant selection steps involved in creating your very own wildflower meadow. Until then, happy gardening and remember that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place.