Flowers for All

March 19, 2023 5:57 AM

I'm thinking of turning a part of my yard into a "wildflower meadow" and need advice on the timing.

Looking at turning 200-400 square feet of the sunny side of our Zone 7A lawn from a dry grassy lawn into a perennial wildflower meadow. I imagine two main options when it comes to the timing:
1. Rototill the lawn now, smother for a few weeks, seed a mix of annuals and perennials
2. Do more extensive smothering/tilling over the course of the summer, seed fully perennial in the fall.

I am open to any and all thoughts on how to do this most successfully!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

1) is going to go very badly. The massive soil disturbance will facilitate disturbance-adapted ruderal species, the vast majority of which are aggressive, and commonly considered weeds. Their seeds are already in the seed bank and more will arrive soon. A fewweeks will not stifle them in any way that matters. They will swarm, smother, and generally out compete all your desirable species, leaving no or few survivors.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:08 AM on March 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Anecdotal experience: I did something similar to 1, but with soil that had been excavated from a few feet below ground level shortly before planting. It took really well!

At the same time, I did a "smother and scatter" technique on other parts of our yard. It didn't take at all, no flowers.
posted by Summers at 6:13 AM on March 19, 2023

I would recommend following the advice of native seed suppliers. If you are in the US, Prairie Moon is a good one and has a lot of advice on how to turn your lawn to prairie, seed mixes appropriate for different types of soil and sun, and other situations. Now may not be a good time for sowing in the northern hemisphere as many seeds will require cold stratification and it’s too late for that.
posted by sizeable beetle at 6:20 AM on March 19, 2023 [9 favorites]

We get money from The Man to maintain "traditional hay meadow" on the larger part of our small-holding. "These areas may not be grazed from 1st April until after the hay is cut each year. Meadows for conservation may not be cut until after 15th of July". If you don't cut them weeds wild-flowers will come! Spending a lot of money on wild-flower seeds may be a mere illusion of control. No-mow will allow locally native, micro-climate appropriate, species to get their heads above the parapet. So long as they can flower and set seed, the project will be self-sustaining. A great many of the desirable species flower in the early summer hence the diktat under which we operate. Suggest you'll get more delight from your patch if you mow a wandery path through it. Ten years in we are also getting a wonderful diversity of fungal fruiting-bodies in the fall. Finally: acquire a scythe - it will change your life.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:38 AM on March 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

One thing you could try is double-digging instead of rototilling. Rototilling hits the top 6 inches or so. With dd, you dig a foot wide trough about 9 inches deep, saving the dug soil. Then you loosen the soil in the bottom of the trough, mixing in compost. Then dig another trough next to the first, inverting what you dig on top of the previous trough. Repeat until you reach the end. In the last trough, you put in the soil from the first trough. Anything that was in the first 4 inches should be now 6-9 inches down.
My spouse and I did that to start a garden many years ago. It was very labor intensive but made an incredible garden with very few weeds. If you don't have the time/labor I'd guess it's 3-4 hours work for someone with a Bobcat.
posted by plinth at 7:39 AM on March 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

I agree that 2 is better. If you want to really increase your effect on local insect and bird populations, make sure you are planting flowers and grasses that are native to your area. I also suggest seeding lots of fast growing annuals/short lived perennials like anise hyssop or partridge pea to fill in while other slower-growing species get started.
posted by chaiminda at 8:30 AM on March 19, 2023

Something you can do in conjunction with whatever you decide is to put in some wildflower "plugs" (pre-started plants). They will get you growing much sooner than seeds, hold the soil, hold moisture, help pollinators, etc. Then you can fill in with seeds around them.
posted by xo at 9:46 AM on March 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

Check out out the No Lawn subreddit. They have a great wiki page.
posted by shoesietart at 11:41 AM on March 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

I had a consultation with our local native plants folks about having an area in my yard for wildflowers. She explained that the problem is that the soil that's good for wildflowers is dreamland for weeds. So, what happens: you ready the soil and spread seed and maybe even water, and then lots of things will sprout, and you won't know which are weeds and which are flowers, so you won't be able to weed, and you'll end up with robust weeds and not many wildflowers.

Her suggestion was to start with plugs (little sprouted wildflowers) in good soil, so you'll know they aren't the weeds. You could then mulch the rest, with wood or cardboard or landscape fabric or whatever.

I know we have this idea of spreading wildflower seeds on soil and then ta-da! We have a low maintenance, pollinator-friendly flower garden, but in truth, it can take a lot of work to set up and get to no-grass, pollinator-friendly, native plants.

If you have a local backyard habitat or native plants or pollinators group, check their website for suggested approaches. You could also go to your local native plant nursery and chat with them. I know it all seems like a lot more work, but your plan might have you end up with a lot of weeds you still want to mow.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:45 AM on March 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

I also recommend plugs. Depending on where you live, there's probably a nonprofit currently accepting orders for their spring plant sale. They probably won't be useful to you, but these are a couple of examples from Chicagoland/NW Indiana area:

Chicago Audubon Society Native Plant Sale

Indiana Wildlife Federation Native Plant Sale
posted by pullayup at 12:16 PM on March 19, 2023

Also recommend plugs or time. Lots and lots of time. You can till it and wait, pulling the weeds as you recognize them (and my weeds I mean non-natives in your area, most beneficial wildflowers are weeds!).

Our meadow is six years old and it is now starting to balance out, lots of golden rod and asters.
posted by lydhre at 2:25 PM on March 19, 2023

Response by poster: Appreciate all this great advice, thank you!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:00 AM on March 20, 2023

I’m coming at this from the UK, so take all this with a pinch of salt and consult your local experts, but around here a big part of the problem is overly nutrient-rich soil. Our native meadow flowers are adapted to soil which hasn’t been enriched with fertiliser; fertiliser encourages grass, nettles etc rather than meadow flowers.

Various wildlife charities are currently campaigning for local councils to manage road verges for wildflowers, and part of the initial management is removing nutrients from the system. The suggested way of doing that is basically to cut them in early spring, then let the plants grow over the summer, then cut them again in autumn. But crucially, when you cut it you *remove the cuttings* so that the nutrients don’t get back into the system. Over a few years this should change the balance of species in favour of more diverse, slower-growing plants.

You can read a more detailed breakdown in this PDF, but I don’t know how relevant the specifics are likely to be where you are. Still, if your lawn has been fertilised in the past it might be worth considering the general approach.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 10:51 AM on March 20, 2023