Page 2  Wildflower Growers Manual

Do nothing in an Irish Wildflower Meadow or at least do less work, once its established.

Wildflowers take less time / work than mowing a lawn. 

Most of our products require only one annual cut. Be warned, on fertile soils this cut may be required earlier rather than later in the summer
Even our most maintenance demanding Flowering wildflower lawn or floral lawn need only be mown every 4 to 6 weeks to 4 inches. just cut after each flush of flowers fades.
Always rake up the cuttings.

To control a meadow, Do something

Cut the meadow, any meadow with a lawnmower in early spring well before May. 
Cut again in summer or end of summer. = three cuts per year, this will eliminate most unwanted weeds.
Encourage new seedlings especially in the early years by raking or 'gap creating'. 

Nurture your wildflowers by giving the plants the best start they can have. 
In return they will attract wildlife, and thus improve the garden and reduce the need for chemicals. 
In the long run it will be very rewarding and involve less work. 

Some species will fix nitrogen in the soil and others will root deep into the soil and open it up.  

Do no work.

If you grow our mixtures without grass seed an established meadow will need only one or two cuts per year. (wildflower with grass seed requires more work to establish) 

When you first sow your meadow, do nothing for the first summer, enjoy the cornfield annuals as they provide a riot of summer long colour. 

Cut the annuals in September, its best to rake them but if sown without grass, annuals wont really have to be raked in the first year and the seed provides bird food.. 

In the second year, do even less, as biennials reach for the sky in a blaze. Like Annuals biennials are short lived and may not return.  

Eventually perennials will germinate and the meadow will settle down and evolve into a mature ecosystem filled with native species that flower over many months. Its in the third year that problems arise, first because the true perennials are still small and have only sent up one flowering stem and the meadow looks bare, in the following year these perennials will grow stronger. 

Do nothing but enjoy nature