April 2020 and it’s strange days. Our allotment neighbour is rated super vulnerable to covid-19 and won’t be coming up to the patch much this summer. We decided to dig out a patch near the newt pond. I wanted to do this to try to control the bindweed back there. Once we dug out the weeds and turned the ground over it appeared that there was quite a nice sized patch there – all lined with granite set stones and bricks. So an overgrown former growing patch of some sort.
With the ground all nicely dug out and turned over, we watered the new bed well and then sprinkled and raked in wildflower seed packs. Then watered again. Into this some sunflower seeds were also planted. Fingers crossed some germinate and H will be rewarded with a new wildflower patch near his wild pond area.
We used wildflower packs from Grow Wild and Kew Gardens, including the following:
- Field flower mix: containing bird’s foot trefoil, common knapweed, corncockle, crested dog’s tail, hedge bedstraw, lady’s bedstraw, oxeye daisy, quaking grass, selfheal and yarrow.
- Woodland Wonders mix: for shadier conditions, containing betony, corncockle, foxglove, garlic mustard, hedge bedstraw, nettle-leaved bellflower, perforate St John’s wort, ragged robin, red campion, selfheal, upright hedge-parsley.
- Night-time Bloomers mix: containing bladder campion, common knapweed, corn marigold, cowslip, foxglove, great mullein, lady’s bedstraw, musk mallow and red campion.
- Pollinators Mix: containing betony, bird’s foot trefoil, common knapweed, corn chamomile, corn marigold, cowslip, foxglove, oxeye daisy, red campion, selfheal, white clover, wild carrot.
- White Clover, which attracts bees and is a good soil improver (type of green manure)
- Red Nasturtium (Empress of India) which grows 1 foot by 1 foot. Edible flowers and the leaves can also be eaten.
- Sunflower Giant Yellow
Philosophising... 