Tuesday 10 November 2015

Comments and Questions







This is such a beautiful private garden, 
Hatfield House 
in the country of Hertfordshire. 


Sweet scented wisteria

 




 

 

 


 


 

Please do keep posting up your comments.









4 comments:

Roger said...

Do you have any thoughts on what to plant to create a mini wild flower garden on my front lawn? I dug up the grass last year and planted seeds which wasn't very successful. I thought I'd buy a range of young plants and stick them in shortly.

Mini Gardens UK said...

Hello Roger
Thanks so much for your question.
Apologies for late reply. So do you have no lawn now? Do you purely want
'a wild flower meadow' there? How big is the area? What did you plant and
how much? Was it new in date seed? What effect do you want? Is it bare earth now? Are there weeds, is it very stony? Flint? What is the soil like?
Please can you perhaps email me a photo?
vscola121@googlemail.com
Thanks.

Roger said...

Hi Vanessa,

I dug up all the lawn last winter and planted seeds. The result wasn't great, although some of them did get going.

I was considering whether to dig up the whole lot again, but wondered whether a conifer overhanging the plot might be the problem as it's dropping needles.

Somebody also suggested to me that the earth may be too good for a 'wildflower meadow', but I'm not sure if that's right.

I suppose I'd be happy to plant six different varieties of flower, perhaps 8-10 of each?

Roger

Mini Gardens UK said...

Hello Roger, so many apologies for late reply. Please do let me know the answers to the questions I left you some time back. Spring is a good time to start to sow your Wild Flower Meadow. There are lots of different companies or places online to buy your seeds from as a ready made mix and usually better value. Some like Meadowmania are pretty pricy so do search around. There are good companies like Marshalls who you can try. I think it is a good idea to use a pre blended mix as it is all done for you. The conifer hedge will provide a lot of shade and the needles may be acidic, yes but there is little you can do as it is an established hedge. It is best to mix your seeds when received with sand and scatter them and then you can see where the seeds are. What is your soil like please remind me? What size is the 'plot'?
What types of flower do you have in mind? You can also buy Wild flower bulbs such as single/double snowdrops, bluebells and aconites. As an example a 50g mixture of Wild Flower Seeds could cost £6.50 which is quite a lot depending on the size of your 'plot' but for mostly rye grass and only 20% Flower seed it could cost as little as £3.50 for 50g or £5.50 for 100g.
So let me know and I will endeavour to help you further. Thanks.