Times are changing and the neatly mown lawn is thankfully becoming a thing of the past. It slams the door on the vibrant source of the life, interest and beauty you’d enjoy with a little wildflower meadow tailored to fit your space.

As Nick Fraser, head gardener at the National Trust’s Nunnington Hall in Yorkshire, said: “When we first started our wildflower meadows, people used to ask: ‘Is your mower broken?’ Nobody says that now. Ten years ago, curtains would twitch over an untidy lawn in suburbia.”

Fraser created a ‘chequerboard effect’ lawn with neatly, but unscalped, mown paths laid out between metre-square uncut patches. The grass was allowed to grow and dormant flower seeds germinated and grew into a buzzing grassy sward. Some years ago, I did much the same in an organic demonstration garden within a nursery and visitors simply loved it.

A little meadow must be clearly defined, with neat edges and obvious paths, deckchair islands or football pitches. This makes the ‘meadow’ part of a cultivated garden, not just a “neglected” tangle. And this idea can be scaled down to suit quite small gardens.

So what’s the point? For starters, you won’t be engaging firms to ‘get the lawn started’ with their ghastly concoctions that kill countless billions of soil organisms. You’re also cutting back on fuel-emitting CO2 machines and stressful noise pollution.

By enhancing the environmental appeal of the garden, flowers selected to bloom over as long a period as possible offer nectar and pollen for pollinators.

Headline pollinators are undoubtedly bees and there are over 270 different bee species in our islands, not just honey bees. Six or seven bumblebee species are especially important. As I write, I can see 2 or 3 bumblebee queens working assiduously on blossom in the peach house, preventing laborious work pollinating with a little paint brush. These ladies get on the job much earlier than honey bees. And don’t forget all the solitary bee species, such as mason bees.

There are many other pollinators. They include butterflies, moths, wasps, solitary wasps, lacewings, hoverflies, beetles, flies and spiders. Beautifully-marked butterflies carry less pollen than many others but spread pollen further by travelling greater distances. Moths, especially night ones, are overlooked as pollinators, and long grasses are often their caterpillars’ food plants.

Perhaps predictably, slugs and snails spoil the party by ruining flowers, but what do you expect?

Flowers bloom briefly but a grassy sward works throughout the year offering food for many creatures and sheltered sites for breeding and hibernation. And the different grass heights suit a wider range of creatures. Pied wagtails and starlings need the grass short but many species, like wrens and dunnocks appreciate insects they’ll find when it’s long.

Creating a wildflower ‘meadow’ is easy with an established lawn that hasn’t been contaminated by poisonous chemicals. Simply let it grow and discover how many flowering species appear. You may have an old seedbank that will then manage to get established.

Dealing with a new build or lawn where the seedbank may have been damaged by repeated chemical applications entails a little work. Don’t simply scatter a wildflower mix: the seed can’t get established in a tangly sward.

Buy a grass mix to suit your soil type and location. Create bare patches in the lawn: curved or straight lines, or a series of clumps – whatever you fancy. Sow the grass seed and enjoy an autumn bonanza.

With flowers, buy plug plants of perennial flowers you like that grow in you area. Sadly, I haven’t found any Scottish suppliers, but English nurseries should advise what will work for you.

Plant of the week

Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’ bears large, daisy-like flowers above neat mounds of deeply divided leaves. Best in partial shade where the white flowers really stand out.