Following my blog last week about forsaking the mower for a while and letting the lawn live a little prompted some people to get in touch to ask how could they then add some colour.
The Advanced Level technique is to strip off the turf and topsoil to get rid of the nutrient-rich level and sow wildflower meadow seed.
But I know that many people just don't have the time, energy or funds to try this. So this blog ISN'T about the full-blown, 'remove the top soil, sow wildflower seed' meadow-making technique. This is all about the little things you can try with your existing lawn just to make it far more interesting to wildlife.
The good news is that, unless your lawn is recently laid, it probably already has plenty of plants in it already that are just itching to be given the chance to flower. You actually need to do very little except give them chance to flower once in a while.
There are probably clovers in there, such a brilliant nectar plant...
Self-heal is another plant whose rosettes of leaves can survive the passage of the blades, but whose pink flowers are delightful if given the chance.
You may have the purples of Ground-ivy waiting to bloom...
...or the intense blues of Germander Speedwell.
But if you want to be proactive and add yet more colour, then this autumn you could plant bulbs into the lawn for a 'spring meadow' effect, such as Snake's-head Fritillaries.
Or buy some plug plants to add into the lawn right now. They can be really cheap - as a rule of thumb, good value plugs are a pound or less each. Most of the flowers above are available, as are Cowslips, such as these that I photographed last week on a grassy bank in a garden...
With such a palette of possibilities, wouldn't it be lovely to think that the typical lawn of the future will be technicolor.
And on our Give your Mower a Rest webpage, I've set out the ways to create a spring or summer meadow. But if it is just a case of leaving the lawn unmown once in the season, then that's a great start,
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
hi Dotty
I've never heard of Cat's-ear going rampant like that - it is normally well behaved. But one of the hawksbeards is a possibility - I just haven't come across them taking over a lawn in this way before, and it is certainly not something one would ever expect to be in a seedmix, so I presume it is wind blown seed from nearby. Obviously the key thing for you is what you are going to do in the future. If you wanted further chat about that, do feel free to email me on adrian.thomas@rspb.org.uk
Hi Adrian,
We sowed the mix into the existing grass having first scarified it, then when the flowers were over and had seed heads, we cut it down but not too short.
The hawkweed things look like either Crepsis versicaria {taraxifolia}, [Beaked Hawk's-beard] or Hypochoeris radicata, [Common Cat's-ear], (The Concise British Flora in Colour - W. Keble Martin, Collins Complete British Wildlife Photoguide - Paul Sterry, respectively.) I may well be wrong as I'm no expert. The stems are (as far as I can see) fairly smooth, the leaves deeply lobed and hairy and form rosettes at the base. Sorry no photos but I haven't figured out how to get them from my camera/phone/tablet, into my computer, let alone send them anywhere! I'll work it out sooner or later but I guess by then my operating system will be defunct...
Dotty
Good on you for trying, Karin. If you are happy to just let it do what it wants to do this summer, one idea would be to try an autumn sowing. This can work better on poor soils because they can germinate while the ground is warm and then get established in the wetter autumn weather.
Seed choice is also really important. If the soil is free draining and rather sandy among those rocks, then companies like Emorsgate do special wildflower mixes that are designed to cope with the poor conditions.
I meant, 'Oh - I've been hoping that groups of low plants that already grow in this lawn might be from the 1850s'.
I live in social housing in E7 - the Forest Gate Industrial School, est 1854 - which has a very poor soil filled with small rocks. I was given permission to turn a section of the front lawn into a meadow 2 springs ago. Unable to remove the top, I've just scattered wildflower meadow mix seeds all about, hiding most under existing 'weeds'. We've had so little rain that very few have grown! It's too big to carry jugs of water to. This seed sprinkling, I mixed the seeds with old lavender, from last year, hoping this might protect them and keep any moisture longer. Nothing yet, but it's still early. Anyone have any ideas? It's still far better than mown lawn. Oh - I've been hoping that plants the already grown in this lawn might be from the 1850s.