One of our many projects for this year is to grow a wildflower meadow in our little orchard!
I did the hard work last September - after multiple shorter and shorter lawn-mowings (ok, Rich did that bit...), I spent many a back-breaking evening raking up the grass cuttings and scraping the ground down to as close to bare earth as I could manage. The highlight of those evenings, when it got too dark to see, was to put down my rake, take an apple from my favourite tree, and sit on the giant rock in the middle of the orchard listening to the owls and watching the bats swoop and dive above me.
Once we had cleared as much grass as possible, I sowed the wildflower meadow seed. I used a perennial wildflower mix, which had twenty-nine native wildflowers which will hopefully flower from April to September and attract bees, butterflies and birds. Because the perennial flowers will take a few years to bloom, I also sowed a cornfield annual mix which should flower this year. These are much more colourful and dramatic than the perennials; poppies, cornflowers, marigolds and chamomile should be springing up this summer.
Creating a wildflower meadow is a little bit counter-intuitive. They do not like good soil - the poorer the better. This means no manure, no fertiliser...and a panicked removal of all sheep poo left by our woolly trespassers as they pass through. Wildflowers also can't compete with our normal grass (hence the obsessive mowing and raking!). One very useful plant, included in the wildflower mix I bought, is Yellow Rattle. This flower is parasitic on grass, rather handily, and so weakens the grass as it grows, allowing the other wildflowers to emerge.
I have been anxiously peering at the ground in the orchard since Spring came. At first glance, it looks like we have already lost the battle with the grass. However, a closer inspection reveals lots of little leaves of things that I don't recognise. And this is where my plant-identification app on my phone comes in very handy. It looks like we at least have some of my meadow plants germinating!
Here is the very useful, if slightly underwhelming-looking Yellow Rattle, which will be blooming with tiny yellow flowers in the summer:
And this leafy creature is apparently a corncockle, if my app is correct, which will have gorgeously pretty pink flowers:
I am looking forward to posting some photos of the orchard with a carpet of wildflowers in a few years time, if all goes well! But in the meantime, we can still enjoy the apple blossom:
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