Starting a meadow

[il_cacciatore]

We have a large field (50m x 50m) about that is used for nothing productive. It has plenty of wild ryegrass on it but nothing else but weeds.

I was thinking that it would be better to have as a meadow. Was wondering how this could be achieved.

Would we need to plough the field to kill the grass then sow with meadow or would just sowing it with a 'meadow mixture' be enough? Given the large size of field if I were to sow on an area is it likely that the meadow will spread and take over the whole field?

Anyone have any pointers?

[Flummery]

Mr Flum is a meadow fan. We have a (very small!) wild flower meadow in the garden. To be honest, sowing meadow mixtures can be iffy - the stronger grasses take over, which is what you have now. I would keep it well mown for a season, ALWAYS taking the mowings off to impoverish the land. The best bet to ensure a mix of flowering plants is to plant plugs. You can buy them or raise your own from seed (Which Mr F does). Admittedly the matter of scale makes a difference. You also need to decide what kind of meadow you're after. A spring flowering meadow like ours needs cutting in mid July. A summer flowering meadow will be cut in September. You can put animals on to graze (at the right time of year) if that's suitable for you. I don't think your meadow mixture will take over the field, given that they are quite hard to get established even when you are trying hard!

Ours is currently flowering with cowslips, oxe eye daisy, cuckoo flower, bugle and one or two others that escape me at the mo (silver haired syndrome!) but I have a constant battle removing dandelion which would happily take over.

A meadow is lovely but it isn't an easy option and it does take some maintenance. And be aware that quite a lot of the time it will look messy - I'm always apologising for ours!

Best of luck! Wish I had that much space!

[beach chick]

hmmm, I am an ex-meadow owner!
we also have a field (maybe 3x the size of yours?) and we cleared it totally - scraped off the top layer of scrub and grass and so on, and then sowed it with a wildflower mix specially selected for our area.
problems: weeds, especially cleavers, which took over the top third of the plot
strong grasses swamping prettier things
cutting it at the end of the season - bearing in mind this was about 5 years ago, and it took 4 men 3 days to cut and clear off the debris, and we STILL have a pile of 'hay' rotting behind the garage.
good bits: for 3 weeks of the year it was STUNNING, we cut double width paths at random through it, so you could wander through, and we had flowers up to about 4 foot tall.

I am afraid that we gave up, and now we mow it throughout the summer. however, I do leave big patches round trees and stuff, so we still get a little bit of meadowy feel, but on balance it was an awful lot of work (and money!) for not enough reward for us.
sorry if that's put you off!!! at Great Dixter they have a fantastic meadow, so might be worth looking at that? its in sussex, but maybe they have a website!

[nick the grief]

Get a copy of CHris Baines's book Creating a wildlife Garden it tells you how to do it in there

[SimonCole]

My Nan has one half the size. They are high management to get the tiny flowers that are so highly publicised, like orchids, fritillaries and cowslips. You tend to just have 5ft nettles. I would offer it for local scout troops to camp on.

[il_cacciatore]

Thanks for the input. Looks like i'll need to really consider it hard.

[nick the grief]

this may be interesting ......

I came across this whils looking for something else and I thought it may be ov interest

http://www.shef.ac.uk/landscape/rese...istic_herb.htm