Christine’s last post with her beautiful field of Anemones got me totally inspired! The idea of a meadow brings to my mind the memory of childhood in my family’s back garden. Tall grasses and sunshine and the smell of wild flowers! My Dad used to make hamburgers on the grill and my Mom set the picnic table with a checkered table cloth and paper plates! And then …
when I was reading my favourite gardening magazine, I came across an article on creating your own meadow – I was moved to action!
I had all I needed to start this process. A great area to work with under the 4 fruit trees (lemon, fig, guava and loquat trees). It’s patchy and unattractive. The soil is really not bad and with the wandering chickens giving it a working over from time to time, it must have enough nutrients to sustain a wild meadow!
We had a wonderful full day of rain and the back garden was waiting for a facelift. I had it ear-marked for this idea last year but waited for the rain before I tackled this project. The ground is clay and very, very hard (like cement) in summer, so little can be done with it during the hot spell. I had a packet of indigenous daisy mix and I also had a packet of Berea Lawn seeds (also indigenous). Together with this I combined another packet of garden mix with poppies, lilies and tons of other dainty flowers. A real pot luck of blooms! I added the seeds to a peat moss, compost and bone meal mix. I prepared the area by raking it all open to at least 5cm in depth. Levelled it all out and sprinkled the mix onto the prepared area and then watered it thoroughly!
The Area – before
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And After
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Ok, you can’t see much, but it was a lot of work!
A meadow brings to mind a wildlife friendly garden, imitating what nature really intends. Everything living in harmony together and the butterflies and the bees. It becomes self-sustaining and watering will be cut down once it is all established.
I will keep you up to date!!
Happy Gardening xxx