Topic: native plants for wild flower patch?

[Hazelb]

I get confused between all the 'wild flower medow' information.  :-\

I've got two situations were I would like to grow native wild flowers ( to help the bees!  ;D) can anyone tell me the approaches to take?

1 ) An existing rough strip of grass/weeds next to my drive.

It has some yarrow and a few butter cups and lots of weed/scrappy grass. Should I just add plugs of native plants, so seed or dig up and start again.

2) I'l like to grow 'annual wild flowers' on bits of my allotment, I'm not using each year. What sort of annual seed mix should I use. I get confused by the options.

[Kleftiwallah]

'Wild flowers' don't do very well on fertile soil (like what you have in your allotment).  They have adapted to poor soil so they don't have much competition.

The rough strip of soil may be better.  Try and find out the pH of the soil and investigate which wild flowers do best in that type of soil.

Best wishes and Cheers,     Tony.

[Flighty]

I'd forget the meadow bit and sow easy to grow annuals which will self-seed year on year.
On my allotment I grow pot marigolds, sunflowers, poppies, cornflowers, cosmos, nasturtiums, poached egg plants, love-in-a-mist, phacelia and more.  They're all good for bees, butterflies and  hoverflies.
Either buy individual packets of the ones you want or look out for the mixed annuals seed packets which normally say what's in them.
I'd just tidy up the rough strip, weed it if you can then lightly fork if before sowing a packet or two of wildflower seeds, which are mostly perennials, so won't do much for a year or so. I'd also sow a few annual seeds, such as poppies, on there as well.

[gwynnethmary]

We have a beautiful border at our lottie-sunflowers at the back, 2/3 wigwams for sweet peas, with marigolds, poppies, cosmos and cornflower in between.  It looks an absolute picture in the summer, which makes up for the bareness of the ground the rest of the year.  In our new plot we're going to repeat it, and also grow daffs to cut in the spring.  We also grew dahlias to cut last year, and I spotted the first shoot a couple of days ago.  Flowers really make a difference to an allotment-apart from attracting the pollinators, they're just so good to look at!  And I never mind picking the annuals, because they just keep on making more, especially the sweet peas.