Kitchen Garden Forum

Have area with 6 trees apple/pear/plum & couple current trees, rather neglected by me I have to admit.

Thinking of sowing a meadow seed mix to give some colour & food for bees (hive next door) and other wild life.

Planted loads of daffodil bulbs last year so hopefully will have a bit of colour to start the year off.

Any issues or suggestions on my idea would be appreciated.

Presumably, you were thinking of sowing the mix INTO the grass which is already there? If so, I wouldn't - it's rarely successful. The ideal would be to skim off the existing grass and fertile soil and then sow it with a grass/wildflower mix, but if that is not possible, I would sow the meadow flower mix (without grass seed and make sure it's UK collected!) into as many seed pans/boxes you can muster and then dot plant the wild flowers into the existing grass in late summer after closely mowing the whole area. If you can get hold of fresh yellowrattle seeds in early summer, sow that and hope it will weaken the existing grass.
Living in Norfolk, could you get some freshly cut hay from somebody's hay meadow in summer and spread that over the area?
There are lots of very interesting and helpful books on the subject, by the way!

Thanks for your comments Monika.

Grass is patchy at the moment, could easily clear it, not really aiming to grow grass as world prefer plants that are colorful & attract bees/wildlife.

last year it had loads of thistles it at the moment nettles are creeping in, the patch has a ditch on two sides with trees/brambles as hedge.

Thanks for the good idea of growing seed pans/boxes then transplant.

Both thistles and nettles are good for wildlife, of course, but there is a limit on how many you would want to tolerate!