Hi Tansy,

I read on one of your other posts your color scheme,it is very similar to mine,i love white in a garden,have you looked at the new Bliss Victoria mag.The garden featured in there is to die for.

I don't know any thing about starting a medow garden,but from what you say, i can picture it in my mind, and it sounds lovely,very doable.If you sent me an answer to my e-mail,i didn't get it,sorry,try again ok?

I defintley will be saving seed this year,who would have know they were so costly,not me! :0)

You have done a lot already this month,how many containers so far?

Tansy,

Not really doing a meadow in terms of what you will be doing, but I will be working on a particular section of the property this summer and the idea is to create an area for butterflies to feed.

The area is about 100 feet by 40 feet and has been taken over by brush and young trees. Last fall I began cutting some of the brush to the ground and selecting the maples and spruces which I wanted to remain. After clearing out one particular area, I laid down cardboard and lasagnaed with seaweed, UCGs, shredded leaves, and grass clippings. The lasagnas are all over 2 feet thick and sometimes as much as 3 feet. But as we know, they will shrink with time. I was able to finish three lasagna areas by the time the cold and snow came.

There will be paths set in this area and all plants will cater to bees, butterflies, moths, and birds. This is as long as the plant is not favoured by deers and I have discovered that in most cases plants favoured by little creatures are not favoured by deers.

So far I have winter sown Achillea (Pastels and Cerise Queen), Joe Pye Weed, more Astilbes, and 5 different kinds of Buddleias for this area. Oh, and 15 containers have been devoted to Ascelpias. Got to love those Monarchs!

It's going to be a continuing work of gardening for at least a couple of years, but in the end it will all be worth it!

Tiffy,

I know of a little girl in Wiscosin who raises Monarcs,she is only 7 i belive,last year she raised and relessed 200 in all.There is a special kind of milk weed they like,i always thought they would like all kinds of milk weed.

I also, am planting for butterflies,but do not know as much as you do, i am still learnig.I wish i would have know about the cardboard and such,do you do that for the next season?,to keep weeds out?What is a "lasagna".and a UCG's?Thank's,Carol

Oh Tiffy and Carol!
This is wonderful because I really missed Victoria Magazine when it went out of print. I used to try to buy back issues on eBay, but they get pricey. Now that it's back, I just subscribed and I will definitely check the newstand for that current issue. They have such wonderful romantic garden ideas. That's wonderful news, Carol. I emailed you earlier that I am full of plants and seeds and can't take any more, but would love updates on how the Egyptians turn out! Also, your white cosmos!
Tiffy your butterfly garden sounds like a gorgeous idea, and so awesome to do. Do you provide them water as well? I have a little corner of land that sounds similar and might try to healp up some leaves back there under cardboard. I am really worried about the bee and butterfly population in this day and age of climate change, so I really want to make sure to help them all I can.
I will definitely be dancing with joy if I see any honey bees in my meadow this year, or whenever the flowers are at their peak--could be a few years I guess.
Tiffy, do you make your paths out of something like pine needles?
Are you on the coast? Do you have a pickup truck for things like the seaweed?
I have a van, so I have to be careful what I haul or we could end up smelling like our cargo!

Find your ideas and efforts very interesting. I remember seeing a lot of beautiful meadows when I was young when we would drive out into the country, which nowadays are suburbs. Such a shame. I was also just reading about someone else who was using milk jugs to start mini grass mixtures to find one they liked. Mixing their own seed. Very inspiring..lol.

I am curious though. I can think of a number of seed to add to a mix, but what about the short grasses? I would like to use native grasses to my state, but I have never heard of what they are or where there would be any seed for them. Is someone using grass seed mixed in? Is it going to be a meadow that has to be mowed or not?

pm2

Tansy,
I'm thinking about possibly doing a meadow someday, but I have too many things going this year to do that. I have to get all of the plants planted that I've wintersown before I start another project. I like the idea of having a meadow and helping the butterflies. If I'd have one here, I'd probably mostly plant all native grasses in it. I have to do more research on that though to see exactly which ones are hosts for some butterflies. I know that Purpletop (Tridens flavus) is one and some bluegrasses but don't know details. The drawbacks that I can see about putting one here is that where I'd put it would be surrounded by woods and would have limbs falling in it pretty often, but I guess that happens in nature, so it might not even be a problem. It's just that if I wouldn't have paths, it would be difficult to get in if I'd have to do anything in there. I wouldn't want to walk in it in the spring and summer (especially summer) because I'd probably encounter snakes (ewwww!), so I'd probably stay out of the meadow. I know when we don't get around to mowing here as soon as we'd like and the grass gets to be about half a foot, the snakes love to be in it. I can see them dashing about in front of the mower, trying to get out of the way. I like when I find turtles in it though. Of course, they move too, only not real fast. I don't go fast because I don't want to run into any creature if I can avoid it.

Something I like about turning part of our back lawn into a meadow is that it would save on the grass mowing and therefore save money us money not having to buy as much gas. One thing about having a meadow concerns me though. Even though it would save on the grass mowing and make less work, I'm wondering how many invasive things would grow in it over time and become a problem later on. I don't want to have to be redoing the whole thing in another ten years because of having to rid it of things like crown vetch and honeysuckles. I'm basically torn apart on whether or not I want to start a meadow here. Oh, and also we have deer that come into our yard, so I'm wondering if they would eat some of the plants that would have butterfly caterpillars on them and therefore kill the butterflies.

Hi guy's & gal's,

Tansy,I didn't get your e-mail, did you send it to the right address? :0)
I have always loved Victoria mag.Very romatic,and this garden is beautiful!

Did any one see the special on last week about the honey bees disappearing,very sad,no one knows for sure where they are going or why they are leaving.I raised honey bee's one year years ago,they only stayed a year or two,all we could figure was some one within a two mile radius was using pestisides,because the hives just died off.I am pretty much an organic gardener,i do have weeds in my flower bed's, does not bother me at all,they are not over run with weed's ,but if some find theur way in,and i am in another garden, oh well.Last year we had a free garden walk,some of the women said if they have a dandelion
in their garden it drives them crazy.ha ha
Another reason i am planting for our little friends,i also am worried about their existence,i had a fellow come down to my place a couple of years ago looking for a rare butterfly that used to be around here,he wanted to stay a couple of hours to see if he might find it, but no,he did not, said their food sourse has been removed because of developement around here,i am hoping to plant more things for them in the hopes of drawing them in.Wish me luck.I live close to a 2,000 acher Nature Preserve,they have a lot of grasses and native flowers,they do a burn every year.Perhaps you could talk to some one close by if you ahve a Nature Preserve in your area, many times they will give yoy free seed for something like what you have in mind.

I am jealous of your sea weed.

Prairie nursery has lots of ideas on meadow making. B

Here is a link that might be useful: meadows

Tansy,

I live but a house away from the shores of Shad Bay and just a walk away from the Atlantic. My neighbours enjoy seeing me come down with my little wagon to gather the seaweed which has washed ashore after a storm. I also keep thier beaches really clean in the summer.

The paths will be made from wood shavings. There is a log home manufacturer - we have one - close by and they have a mountain of pine wood shavings which are there for the taking so on the way home I will fill up. I started making paths in other gardens with it two years ago and love the stuff.

Carol,
The cardboard is to snuff out the weeds underneath. Lasagna gardening is basically placing layers of organic materials, altering from greens and browns if possible, to create a garden space. Some folks plant in this lasagna right away, but I wait a season or so sometimes.

UCG = used coffee grounds.

Brandy, thanks for that link.
Carol I will try an email to you again, when I get to that mailbox. Thank you so much again for letting me know about the new Victoria Magazine. That really made my day!
This is a sample garden of Fleur de Lawn which only needs to be mown once or twice a season. If you plant this lasagna style, it should get rid of honeysuckle and other meadow invaders--though it isn't a native mix.

Buffalo grass is native to the Kansas area and is supposed to be low growing.

I think it's a great idea making your own mix after checking with a nature reserve in your area!

But this no-mow mix has something like:
a short fescue (Eureka)
English Daisy
Roman Chamomile
Yarrow Millefolium
Sweet Alyssum
Strawberry Clover

People who have used it rate it very high and have not found it invasive. It does not stand up to heavy wear.

{{gwi:358116}}

Thanks Tansy so nice to see green(and pink)!! B

It's beautiful.Very peacful.

So Tiffy,this sounds like it is a compost pile,same thing?

OH, i feel silly,UCG's,of course.I get quite a lot during the summer from Starbuck's and throw them in my garden's.Just don't know them as UCG's,ha ha
Not only an i new to WSing, i am not real computer savvy,with the 'LINGO'.

So not only am i getting an education on WSing,i am learning some new computer things as well.I am always open to new things.

I have a friend who has about a truck load of cardboard,i should get some from him shouldn't i.I do belive i will this week.

Tiffy,is that a picture of your yard?

Carol:
That is a picture of a test plot of a product called "Fleur de Lawn" a mixture that cuts down on mowing.

I bought a pound of it to try out this year.

Tansy

You sound like you have a distinct cool color scheme, but friends of ours in TX have a pasture that is truly a flower meadow. Their pasture also includes a bunch of xeric flowers that you might consider:

gaillardia
rudbeckia
liatris
echinacea
prairie smoke
lupines

Also, if you're in the ROckies, you could also throw in

columbine
larkspur
asters

as natives that would match or complement your color scheme.

Tansy were did you order your seeds from? The Fleur de Lawn ones? B

There is a small meadow area way in the back of my lot. It is a mix of grass and a few wildflowers with some invasive plants mixed in. I have been removing the invasive plants, and might even try burning some of it off.

I have wintersowed lots of native wildflowers and plan to WS lots of plugs of natives grasses to enhance the meadow. Not quite sure how I'm going to do it yet? I have considered something similar to Tiffy, and create lasagne beds in some areas and start from scratch. I could then put the WS babies in a holding bed while the lasagne does its thing.

I'm also considering just digging good sized planting holes, planting the seedlings, and mulching well to prevent weed competition. But then I would have to be diligent about watering and weeding them.

Maybe a combination of both.

{{gwi:345352}}
{{gwi:358117}}

Here are 2 photos of the first year for my wildflower bank on the side of our steel storage building.( afternoon sun)

I used clover for the nitrogen fixing properties, as this site was poor/rocky soil and this test patch was intended for steep slopes that require hired guys to maintain for me. If I had areas that I could mow easily I would have chosen the low growing perennial grasses and added less pure flower seed for a meadow effect.

The method I used required no tilling, no soil amendments,and the seed was broadcast spred.
I have to admit I did ALOT of research prior to this small test plot. I no longer have full time staff to help with the homestead property, I don't have the time required for formal plantings along the banks and roadsides, plus I don't have a millionaire pocketbook to pay some of the prices seed companies charge for seed.

I will caution anyone that many "wildflower" mixes are only 4, 5, 7 , or of your lucky 10% flower seed! The rest is newspaper ground up or vermiculite.
The staff at OutsidePride are wonderfully helpful and I cannot find better pricing anywhere.
The 2 or 3 other slopes I will do this year, I am planning on not using roundup for site fumigation, after identification of the worse of the weeds is chichory, I decided I can live with that.

The entire season from Spring to late fall my place was buzzing with good bees, bugs and fluttering with butterflies and hummers. So many local farmers who stopped by the house were shocked that I had so many.
Maybe this year I can get the beekeepers to come up and take counts.

As for the roaming deer Caterwallin, well they went thru my brand new loop lock pool cover, grrrrrrr. But, so far have not as much walked over to the test plot. Wonder about not having to "redo" in 10 years.......I say that is one tall order, lol. I cannot think of any plantings that don't require some sort of maintenance in a decade.

I know the method I used was not WinterSowing, but Directsowing. Thought I would add to this link.

Lizzy

great pics!

Can you plant a meadow on a hillside? I have this hill that goes from my fence to the street and is steep. Even though it is 4' to 5' tall, it raises up to that height in 3' to 4', so the grade is considerable and tough to mow. I planted low growing junipers where I could. But for the grass in between them, I am looking to plant something there and was thinking of a wildflower/meadow mix. Any thoughts?

Hi, Brandy:
I ordered 1 pound from Hobbs and Hopkins on Feb 18th, and it's not here yet. It was abut $30, but I would gladly pay twice that to never have to weedwack again!

GreenGardener:
Yes! Absolutely cover that steep hill with a meadow. Why not? It will keep the soil in place, invite butterflies and bees, maybe even hummingbirds. I would just recommend that you plan ahead where to put some kind of path or stepping stones, because it is terrible to have to step around plants when they are just getting started.

You may have the same problem I have which is figuring out how to start a lasagna garden on a steep slope (I'm on a mountain).

I have to smother the weeds with cardboard and figure out how to keep everything in place with wind and rain until it gets started.

I have straw to help hold the new soil and seed in place, but I think I may also have to scavenge some rocks and make lots of stepping stones to anchor things and make sure the whole thing doesn't slide down to the bottom before taking root.

Me again,
The steepest side of that bank Green you cannot mow and is why I trialed the wildflowers. The side you cannot see has foxtail grass that I only have to weed wack in the spring.
The other bank scheduled for this spring is at a 45 degree angle, the road dept doesn't even mow there.
The difference between wildflower plantings and the meadow is there is more grass seed than flower seed in the mix and I don't want to weed wack more than once a year if I don't have to. I have enough grass to mow, lol about 3 acres i guess.
OutsidePride has the same product as FleurDeLawn for 18.99 a lb. under the name of EcoLawn.

Tansy, why can't you use the no-till, as is soil like I did?
The seeds in either the Wildflower or Eco Mixes don't need rich soil, in fact you aren't suppose to fertilize after sowing, it encourages weeds, :-( Hate to see you go thru so much trouble when you don't have to.
Yes, I used Round Up for initial weeding, but there is a Organic Company producing a vinegar based weed killer available onthe market this year. That company is pharmsolutions on the web.
I didn't remove the dead weed debris so it would be used similar to using straw, the seeds are tiny and used the litter as their "blanket" while germinating.

I hear ya Tansy on the mountain side, gosh if I had flat land I would be in heaven!

I love the hills around here, but they are more work than flat.

BusyLizzy, can I just use RoundUp and then scatter the seeds? That would be GREAT! Would save me a lot of work.

I'm not afraid of RoundUp since organic farmers use it too. It's supposed to be inert after hitting the soil, but too expensive for most farmers to buy and still make a profit.

But question, do I use it now, when everything is dormant? I have grass now that is tough to mow in the summer and has lots of invading weeds. Lots of bare spots on the North side too, from erosion, though we are leaving the oak leaves down for a few years to build the top soil back up.

My sunny slope, where I want to have wildflowers and rose climbers, is a tough grass that I just hate to cut, but it gets unruly and looks terrible in the summer.

Do you think I should use cardboard in the easy spots, and then just RoundUp the rest?

I'm also starting a meadow. I have a natural field with grass paths through it that I mow. There are already some wild flowers growing there, but I wanted to have more. My SIL wanted to plant a cover crop for deer so although I may have done things a little differently, this is what we (he LOL) did:

Weed-whacked the grasses, etc. down to the ground
Raked the entire area numerous times
Roto-tilled it numerous times
Scattered seed
Let mother nature take her course

I'll let you all know how it turns out.

My SIL already has a meadow. I don't know how she prepped the site, but I know she added seeds to it every year until it was established. She does not weed it. She depends on the flowers blooming at different times to camouflage and compete with the weeds.

Then I came across this method posted here. My area was much too large for this method, but I think it's about the easiest, fastest way I've heard of.

INSTANT BEDS

Posted by donn_ 7a, GSB, LI, NY (My Page) on
Tue, Mar 28, 06 at 19:01

Need quick bedspace for your new babies? Here's a surefire way to build them quickly, using nothing but lawn and cardboard.

Groundlevel beds: Cut the lawn/sod about 6-8" deep, in sections you can handle easily. In the space you dug the sod from, lay out sheets of cardboard. Soak the cardboard. Flip the sod chunks upside down, so the grass side is on the cardboard. You now have a new bed, which can be planted into immediately, with a little compost added to the back fill.

Elevated beds: Find a part of the yard that could use a new woodchip path (alongside a bed is a good spot, because it doesn't have to be mowed or edged, because there won't be any grass to grow into your bed). Dig out the same sod chunks outlined above. Lay out the cardboard where you want the new bed, and soak it down. Flip the sod chunks same as above. It's ready to plant. Put down some landscape fabric where you dug out the sod, and cover it with 6-8" of woodchips. You now have a weedfree path that will make compost at it's bottom, which you can harvest every year. Just rake back the top, shovel the bottom into adjacent beds, rake the top back into the bottom, and put a new layer on top.

The primary benefits of instant beds are that you don't need layers of greens and browns like with lasagna beds, and they don't shrink down like lasagna beds.

Nancy in Wisconsin

Weed Biology, what a fun subject!
"Tough Grass", for me that would be a quack grass or crab grass, the foxtail grass when not cut early in Spring is tough clumps by the summer.
If it is any of those you may have to pull the clump, here they are so dense, even when dead no seed would penetrate the weed crown.
If you don't know what grass or weed you have I encourage you to go to www.weedalert.com, this site is great, showing what weed is growing in what regions when and how to get rid of them.
Round Up is a brand name made by Monsanto, their patent ran out in 2000. The active ingredient in Round Up is Glyphosate. I buy mine at the local feed stores, concentrate and mix in sprayer for 1/3 the price of the brand name roundup. Many people are sensitive to using such herbicides and I thought I would give Pharmsolutions a plug, I am anxious to try their product this year.
If my memory is correct Glyphosate does not activate unless the temperature is 50 degrees or higher. i don't know what zone your in.
Glyphosate is absorbed thru the foliage of actively growing plants.
NOP approved Glyphosate for field use? I know 2 years ago it could be used around the farm buildings, that's all.
Non organic farmers use Glyphosate fer sure, 87% of the soy beans sown in the USA are RoundUp ready.
By all means use the cardboard where you can.
I do my best to use organic methods whenever possible. But, when my certified organic kiwi buddy gave me a 40lb bag of osmocote because he cannot use it on the farm I couldn't say no.

Great ideas on this thead, thank you all!
BusyLizzy you are a fountain of information! Thank you so much. I think previous owners bought the toughest lawn grass they could find. It has a tough crown and a sharp leaf. Maybe they had a lot of kids and needed the tough stuff. But it wasn't enough to stop erosion and weeds, so I am going to change everything over to no-mow meadow with areas of wildflowers.

I will definitely try RoundUp where possible, and cardboard and new soil where possible. I'm not ordering rich soil, but am hoping I won't get a pile of red muddy clay delivered. My garden is relatively small, but very steep, so it's just going to take a few years to get it where I want it.

You all are very inspiring!