Advice on wildflowers please!

[Herbsandveg]

I've decided to turn part of my garden into a little corner wildflower border for next year, and am working on it already to try to give it the very best start for next spring and summer.

One of the ideas I have is to pop in some larger perennials at the back such as Lysimachia Punctatas and Ox Eye Daisies (amongst others) and having already bought the former (the Daisies are being grown from seed) I've now got the problem of what to do with them over the winter.

The plants are currently in two extremely spacious pots, and have been place on extremely regular obs in order to guarantee their safety from any nasty predators with an eye on bringing them down.

The question I need to have answered now is whether or not I should risk planting them out once the border is ready in a couple of weeks, or whether I should allow them to grow on in the pots throughout the winter, and then plant them out into position early next year.

I've always loved Lysimachias, and was determined to eventually have some growing in my own garden, and after a disastrous summer in the veg plot any help which could further enhance the chances of success with this (the wildflower corner) would be very gratefully received.

[cheops]

Unless you want your own personal structure - daisies at the back and everything neat and in its place the usual way of creating a wild flower garden is to rotovate the area and scatter a mixture of wild flower seeds either in spring or Autumn and let them get on with it. All will self seed or if you are cutting back the plants after flowering shake the plants to scatter their seed.
To specifically answer your question - your ox eye daisies will be happy to be planted out now and overwinter in your bed. There is no need to protect them. Wildflowers will establish best if planted in the autumn as small plug plants. Do not fertilise the bed - Areas that are naturally low in fertility are ideal, so don't use any fertilisers and thus prevent vigorous grasses from taking over. Cut the area down in Autumn after plants have set seed and again in early spring.
Good luck - you will be creating a beautiful space both for you and nature. Butterflies will dance with delight and bees will hum with pleasure.

[bearded bloke]

One thing I would add, DO NOT 'improve' the soil, meadow flowers seem to prefer impoverished soil, I used the scatter & let them get on with it method, which resulted in ...