Many meadows have been at their vibrant best over the last couple of months. These natural grasslands, with a wide diversity of plants and teeming with wildlife, may have taken centuries to develop, so it’s scarcely surprising that the mini versions we have in the garden need some planning, tweaking and maintenance.
This is the best time to do whatever work is necessary to get the best out of our little meadows.
As with everything in gardening, the first step is to assess how well it did and if changes are needed.
Are the attractive, but less assertive species like the Scottish Bluebell, Campanula rotundifolia, or Cowslip, Primula veris, holding their own against the more dominant Ox-eye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare or Red Campion, Silene dioica? Are grasses overwhelming too many choice flowers?
But there’s a bit of hard work ahead before trying to get the balance of plants the way you want. The once beautiful meadow growth looks pretty tatty now, especially after the recent storms, and I’m itching to cut it down.
I use a strimmer but a sharp scythe is an excellent alternative if you know how to use it properly without ruining your back. After leaving a layer of stubble, rake up everything as this reduces soil fertility.
The coarse brigade, nettles and docks, are less likely to stage a takeover in poorer ground. The richer the soil, the more they prosper, and all at the expense of finer species.
This has been brought home to me in my unending struggle with nettles on a slope between the kitchen garden and the burn. Unmolested, an unholy jungle would avidly gobble up any nutrients leaching out of veg beds.
After strimming, I return these lost nutrients and other meadow clearings to the kitchen garden after composting them.
Inevitably, as I admitted a few weeks ago, some weed seeds do survive the composting process. But many are killed when the composter is kept at 40-50C for three days and a few weeds are a price worth paying for the compost bonanza.
Much as I enjoy strimming, I can’t pretend to like the raking job. But seed sowing is very relaxing.
Direct seed sowing is chancy and unlikely to succeed, so it’s much better to bring on your own seed and plant out well-established specimens.
Although you can do this in spring, few seedlings grow quickly enough to plant out quickly and stand their own against established residents which would quickly throttle them.
So, any spring-sown wildflowers will probably do better if planted out after the autumn strim. Like me, you’ll be frantically busy in spring with other plantings, so it makes much more sense to spread the load and sow wildflower seed now.
This is important with some species, such as cowslip, Primula veris, clustered bellflower, Campanula glomerata, and sweet cicely, Myrrhis odorata.
They require vernalisation, winter chilling, to germinate: sow in a seed tray and leave outside over winter.
Inevitably grass dominates a meadow but it must be controlled to let less dominant flowers survive. Yellow rattle, Rhinanthus minor, does the job, and its yellow flowers with pairs of corrugated and toothed leaves, also make an attractive feature.
Known as the ‘meadow maker’, yellow rattle roots are semi-parasitic and draw water and nutrients from nearby grass roots.
This can reduce vigour of grasses by up to 60%, thereby leaving space for other choice specimens. The more yellow rattle, the greater the diversity of plant species.
After strimming, rake away dead thatch as well as cuttings, broadcast yellow rattle seed in bare patches and stamp in. Seedlings emerge in spring.
Plant of the week
Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Adoration’ bears tall spikes of lavender pink flowers on 1 metre stems. The plant forms a shapely clump that stands well even in heavy rain and wind.
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