Over the last few years, we’ve planted annual native wildflower seed mixes in our tree pits, and although they’ve looked fantastic, by the end of July (and some years August), most of the blooms are over. This spring, during Sarah Raven’s ‘Bees, butterflies and blooms’ on BBC TV, I was wowed by some of the wildflower mixes designed by Pictorial Meadows in Sheffield (and also by the lady herself, who produced 3 truly inspiring 1 hour programmes-clips still available on iPlayer). By adding some non-natives, mixes have been created so that flowers will continue to perform later in the year too. From nine tempting annual combinations, I plumped for ‘Candy Mix’, sowed seeds at the beginning of April and at the moment fairy toadflax (Linaria moroccana ‘Fairy Bouquet Mixed’) is looking delightful with clusters of delicate snapdragon-like flowers glowing like little jewels. You can probably also notice Californian poppies (Eschscholzia) just starting to join the colourful throng too.
I only planted up a small triangle of wildflowers (about 3 square metres in total), but the effect is mesmerizing and has the power to transport you to open fields where you can breathe in the fresh country air and relax your pace a little too (or is it just me?). It would be lovely to plant the whole corner plot with wildflowers, but then where would that leave my veg?
Decisions, decisions and now longing for acres (or at least one) of land to experiment in.
