I frequently find that people wanting to create meadows make common mistakes and waste their money. These include :
- Not eradicating competitive vegetation prior to sowing seed
- Using an inappropriate seed mix (i.e. annuals instead of perennials)
- Sowing at an unecessarily high rate
- Failing to undertake regular topping in Year 1 and then not following correct management in ongoing years.
- Believing that in Year 1 nothing has grown and the scheme has failed (it takes 2 years for most plants to flower), and abandoning it. In the first summer many seedlings are still less than the size of a 5p piece.
I no longer collect seed as my seed harvester was donated in 2014 to the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust. Hopefully this will help them create and restore lots of lovely new flower rich grassland. One of their top meadow reserves is Meadow Farm.
Sowing wild-harvested seed
This can be tricky to sow as it cannot be perfectly cleaned. We have found that using a Vicon Variespreader works reasonably well, but there is a risk of bridging.
