What you need is sandy soil that is unsuited for grass to take over and fill in solid, the usual problem with such schemes here. The native low elevation wildflower meadows, such as at Washington Park in Anacortes and Deception Pass, occur on exposed bedrock outcroppings where the soil is too thin and dry for the forest vegetation to cover and shade them. Even there, there is a problem with invasive exotic grasses taking over and excluding the flowers.

Mowing would tend to encourage grasses, which make new growth from the base and discourage most plants with showy flowers. That is one reason why lawns are made up of grasses and kept mowed.

If your are thinking of having short flowering plants that can bloom under the cutting height, such as English lawn daisy (Bellis perennis) then really what you are talking about is a flowering lawn, rather than a wildflower meadow.

How to maintain a wildflower meadow on 3000 sqft? nothing but wildflowers, no grasses? Don't even try. Won't happen without intensive hand weeding. Mowing does not discourage weeds. Basal rosette weeds have no problem growing and flowering and reseeding under even a regular lawn mowing regime - particularly those 'dandelion lookalikes' mentioned above. AKA summer dandelions or cat's ears. Ditto for many other weeds. Even thistle will persist under regular mowing, although it won't grow tall or flower but it will never ever die either. I even had seedlings of Scotch broom persisting in my lawn, they just spread out instead of growing tall. No self propelled walk behind mower will mow over 4" that I could ever find. I had a high wheel trimmer, basically a string trimmer on wheels like a mower, and you could cut higher but that still won't kill the weeds.

There's no reason to try to grow nothing but wildflowers with no grasses if you're trying to go natural. I have never seen a wildflower patch in the wild that was not dominated by grasses. The grasses provide an ecologically critical permanence that the wildflowers don't - holding and shading the soil, reducing weeds and other invasives and preventing erosion. You just can't have bare soil in nature if it's capable of supporting plant life, something will move in and use it. Wildflowers are short season plants so they leave bare soil when they're not up, and other stuff moves in.

For 3000 sqft you could go with a flowering meadow or rough lawn. I used pasture mix seed to do the same kind of thing - nothing was native but it gave me a permanent flowering meadow that did get invaded by cat's ears but not right away or too badly. It was a mix of forage grasses and clovers, and I added alyssum, CA poppies and an Ed Hume PNW wildflower mix. It wasn't 'natural' but it was pretty darn good. I trimmed it down once a year late fall or winter with either the high wheel trimmer or a string trimmer. One year I tried letting DH mow it down with the garden tractor, with strict instructions to cut it at 12" but the tractor couldn't cut it that high. Sure the blades could be set that high but the grass just lay down flat when the tractor went over and the blades spun without cutting anything so he mowed it at 2". Not the right decision but the only height the blades could reach the grass at.

You can find native grasses, but they're not easy to find or anything remotely resembling cheap. That's why I went with the pasture mix, readily available at feed stores and inexpensive and it has the clover. You can also get various lawn substitute grass mixes at nurseries, like 'erosion control' mix or something like 'earth friendly' or 'natural' lawn mixes, that include low-growing grasses that will top out at 4-6" and include some flowering stuff like alyssum, nemophila, clover and yarrow. Then there are the wildflower mixes but most of those are mixes of midwestern prairie species, not our own natives. You have to read the label carefully, even the 'native' mixes can just mean native to somewhere, not necessarily here.

Those wildflower mixes sure are pretty when they're blooming but they look like he!! the rest of the year. Probably just as well as they really can't be a permanent feature without intensive maintenance. Best treated as spring blooming annuals as suggested above.

Thanks Reg for all your information. I think that Ed Hume has a wildflower mix that has lots of perennials, annuals and biennials that will come up year after year and grow fuller and fuller. I know there will be some native grasses and clover that will grow and that's fine. And, I will walk through there and hand weed some of the larger weeds before they go to seed during the spring and summer. I am not looking for perfection or a totally weedless or grassless area. I am just trying to establish a wildflower meadow that won't be a "weed" meadow.

I was looking online at Ed Hume's website and he has a wildflower mix called Wildflowers for Dry Land areas. It looks like many of the perinnials that are in that mix will flower all different times of the season with some winter blooming varieties as well. And I will reseed every year with annuals and additional perennials to keep it continuously crowded with plants and hopefully, many of the weeds will get smothered out.

As far as the mowing, I think we may purchase a brush mower that mows up to 4" and use that during the spring when the weeds are growing faster than anything else and are out of control. And during the season we will use the weed wacker and some hand weeding as well. We also have a sloped area on the other side of our property that's about 1/4 acre that we cleared of blackberries and planted a native erosion grass mix that we will mow a few times a year to prevent the blackberries from growing back. So, we do need something other than a regular lawn mower and a weed wacker.

As far as cost, I know initially it won't be cheap. I am willing to pay a couple hundred dollars for the wildflower seed mix to cover the area. And, most of the seed mixes that I have seen do have a few low growing grasses in there as well like blue fescue and a couple others.

Hopefully, it will work out for me, otherwise, the area will just return to an ugly weed infested meadow!!!!

Unless you buy a mix that is all real short kinds intended for lawn use I don't see how you will be able to mow during the growing season and not be suppressing the flowers, encouraging the grasses. The normal problem here is that the soils are too suitable for grass growth for taller, non-weedy flowers to persist and dominate, perennial or otherwise. If you have suitably dry etc. soil for flowers to hang on, then it may be feasible - if you don't come in and mow the flowers back!

Freeway verges etc. sometimes get planted with wildflower mixes here, nearly always the flower component soon vanishes.

Even where coast dandelion and other flowering lawn weeds have come into a mown lawn and become a significant proportion of the turf it is because there is a factor present that is inhibiting the turf enough to allow these to compete, such as dry, poor soil, or dampness.

So far we've treated with Round Up 3 times since early summer. Last weekend we rotor tilled the whole area. I know new weeds will pop up over the winter and we will treat 1 or 2 more times with Round up and rotor till again before sowing the seed mix in early spring. Probably March, so we can get a few months of rain. Then, my understanding is that the first year the perinnials will only grow to about 4" to 6" so you mow or weed wack towards the end of the season so the weeds don't go to seed and spread, but the perinnials are too small to be affected. Then, hopefully, the following year the perinnials are large enough with enough flowers to reseed themselves and smother out the weeds.

Of course, there will have to be hand weeding during the first couple of years during the summer to prevent the weeds from going to seed, and I'm planning to do that, but not be obsessed with getting out every weed.

But, the main thing is that, HOPEFULLY, we have erraticated most of the weeds ahead of time by treating the area with Round Up 4+ times before we plant the wildflower seeds.

I hope it works!!!

I think you need to research this scheme more before taking the approach you are suggesting, which I wouldn't expect to work.

I thought it was normal practice to sow seeds in early Fall. They germinate in warm soil and get established before winter. This is how hardy annuals grow by definition, and I know that it works for many perennials too. Many perennials will bloom in the first summer after fall sowing; they won't bloom the first summer from a spring sowing. If you sow in early Spring, the soil is cold and wet, and many (most?) seeds just rot. That's my experience anyway.

1/4 acre is about the size of my yard, which is nearly all garden. I suggest that you plan some pathways, so you won't have to be pushing through plant growth to get around. If you let the weeds go to seed, you will be done for. Your project will require a lot of time and work. Typically, gardeners burn out and lose interest when the hot weather arrives. But it's not the end of the world if you fail. If I had an extra 1/4 acre, I would try it.

Yes, there are multiple points to the proposal that I wonder about as well, in addition to the spring sowing. That's why I think more boning up needs to be done before more work and money are put into it.