Meadow 2018

Meadow September 2018

I decided to try creating a flower meadow in 2018 on the sunnier side of the garden. This was a large patch of weeds that had previously been a seating area and a run for my chickens, measuring 14m x 3m. In the late spring, it was dug over and raked ready for sowing. I had no plan of what sort of meadow I wanted other than lots of flowers for the bees. I'd left it quite late but sowed all sorts of packets in late May and this is what came up. 

Meadow September 2018

As the perennial weeds came through I dug them up eg docks, nettles, thistles & bindweed. I didn't have a problem with annual weeds that year (I have since). What I didn't keep photos of are the bare patches where nothing grew at all or was eaten by rabbits, slugs and snails. The garden backs onto a field so there are loads of rabbits here and I'm still in a battle with them! 

Successes:

• I grew a lot of flowers from seed:
• Bees and other pollinators visited the meadow.

Lessons Learned:

• Sow earlier in the year;
• Keep the rabbits out;
• Needed to find out why there were bare patches.

Lessons Not Learned (that should have been):

• The soil is too stony, shallow & in places almost all sand;
• Every time you dig the soil over, you disturb the seed bank of weeds;
• Rabbits are cleverer than you think.