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It's a new kind of gardening that's more popular every year.
More and more people are discovering the pleasures and carefree beauty of wildflowers.
States are seeding roadsides.
Homeowners are turning high-maintenance lawn into low-maintenance color
and working along with the environment instead of against it.
And almost everybody seems to love wildflower meadows, men, women, and children.
In fact, kids have always found wonderful secret places in every buzzing meadow.
And everyone else finds peace, beauty, and relaxation just gazing at a field of flowers.
It's something you can easily have in your own backyard.
Wildflower meadow gardening is an idea whose time has come.
And at American Meadows, we'd like to help you create a successful wildflower meadow of your own.
We established the Vermont Wildflower Farm back in 1981
and since then have met face-to-face with more home wildflower seed gardeners
than any other company in the country.
The Wildflower Farm is where we talk to our customers, discuss their plantings,
grow our own test fields, and constantly work with our American Meadows seed mixtures
to keep them the best in the business.
The experts here will show you the easy step-by-step way to plant your wildflower seed.
And if you're like most of the homeowners we meet, you're going to love wildflower gardening.
It's the great new landscaping idea that can help you save money, save water,
cut maintenance time, and add incredible beauty to your property all in one stroke.
This video and the Wildflower Farm experts will show you everything you need to know
from choosing your site to enjoying your meadow's full bloom and beyond.
So let's get started.
First, you'll need to choose a spot for your meadow area.
Here are a few examples of different settings for wildflowers.
Whether you're planting a big field or just a small border, try to plant it in a good sunny spot
because think about it, all the wildflower meadows you've seen in nature were always bright and sunny.
Growing meadow wildflowers in the shade can work if you have at least four or five hours of sun a day.
But the more sun you can give them, the better.
The most successful home meadows are always in full sun.
An area going up to a tree line is good, and the flowers will do well up to the trees.
But don't plant them in the trees, it'll be too shady.
Most people simply use part of their lawn and plant it to wildflowers.
After all, who needs all that mowing anyway?
In fact, the edge of a lawn, maybe at the back of a lot or along one side, is a favorite place for wildflowers.
If you have a natural or wooded area beyond, the wildflower meadow will be a perfect transition.
Wherever you choose, try to pick a place where the wildflowers will look natural and informal.
Remember, this is not a conventional flower border you're putting in.
It's going to be an area that will bring the charm of more old-fashioned, informal country flowers to your property.
The area should be chosen with that sort of result in mind.
In addition to lawn replacement, many homeowners remove brush or other weedy growth from areas that have simply been ignored before.
There are great locations on almost any property for wildflowers.
Now, how about soil?
The best advice is to simply use the soil you have.
Good drainage is important, but even in heavy clay you can establish many of the wildflowers we all know and enjoy from country roadsides where they grow in whatever soil is there.
Remember, you're not about to plant a vegetable garden or hybrid flowers.
You're planting the champion survivors of the plant world.
They really don't want to be pampered.
In fact, what gardeners call good garden soil may not be so good for wildflowers.
And it seems the more you improve your soil, the more you invite unwanted grasses and weeds.
It's almost always best to utilize your soil as you find it.
Except in extreme conditions, it's best not to fertilize, not to add lime or peat moss or anything else.
As long as grass or other plants were growing in the area you've chosen, wildflowers should grow there too.
If you see a can or a bag of seed that says to just scatter the seed and stand back, don't you believe it.
You cannot just scatter wildflower seed on old grass or weeds and expect anything to happen.
Just like in any other planting, you must have clear bare dirt for seed to take hold and grow.
Well-prepared ground is the best guarantee of a successful meadow, so it's a very important step.
There are several methods, but we'll start with the most common, rototilling.
You can rent one of these walk-behind home tillers if you don't own one, or you can ask a local landscaper to rototill for you.
Rototillers literally chew up all the existing growth, leaving the earth bare and loose, perfect for seeding.
For a large area, landscapers usually use a tractor-drawn rototiller. The results are the same.
And with a tiller, you can be creative with your landscaping, carving attractive curves or other shapes for your meadow area.
When the tilling is done, chances are you'll have some old roots lying in the freshly tilled soil.
Simply rake them out and make your seed bed as clear as possible.
For probably 90% of today's meadow gardeners, that's it. Just tilling to clear the ground.
But it's important to know that there is one big risk in just tilling your soil and then planting your wildflower seed, and that's the weed seed that may be in the soil.
Of course, a wildflower meadow will always include some weeds and grasses, because no matter what you do, nature will put them there.
And there's no way to know how much weed seed your soil may contain, but there are things you can do.
First of all, till only deep enough to remove the surface growth. There's no reason to till deeply and risk turning up weed seeds that will only cause problems later.
Another safeguard is to seed heavily. Every bare spot you don't plant with a flower, nature will plant with something else as time goes by.
Another way to prevent weeds is to till once, wait a week or two for any weeds to sprout, and then till again.
Just before you plant your wildflower seed.
Yet another alternative is to use a safe, systemic herbicide to completely clear the ground.
Some meadow gardeners use herbicide only and skip the tilling, while others use a combination of both.
Here's Dorothy Hill, staff agronomist at the wildflower farm.
Now that the tilling is complete, most meadow gardeners are ready to go ahead and plant their seed.
However, there are risks to just cultivating and planting, since most soil does contain varying amounts of weed seed.
This weed seed will begin to grow along with your wildflowers unless you take certain measures to eliminate it prior to planting.
One excellent method is to cultivate the area repeatedly in the weeks prior to planting.
This method helps eliminate early germinating weed seeds, as well as persistent perennial plants.
Another method is to use an herbicide. Herbicides are relatively safe and easy to use.
And if you decide that you would like to use an herbicide, here's how.
If you think you have a large quantity of weed seed in your soil, and it's probably most common in ground that was used for crop land in recent years,
choose one of the new, widely available herbicides that are quite safe and easy to use.
The best known are called Roundup and Cleanup.
If you use one, be sure to read all the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter.
Systemic herbicides simply kill all plant growth that is green and growing.
They do not affect seeds, and best of all, they completely dissipate in a few days without any lasting effect on either your soil or groundwater.
Here, Dorothy applies systemic herbicide to young weeds that have sprouted in soil that was tilled just a few weeks ago.
Notice she carefully covers each plant.
The herbicide enters through the leaves and travels through the plant all the way to the roots.
In a few days, the ground is completely clear.
In fact, here at the bottom of the picture, you can see where the herbicide was applied and at the top where it was not.
The results are obvious.
All this clear ground needs now before seeding is a light scratching with a rake to loosen the earth a little to receive the seed.
Once your ground is prepared, it's time to sow.
Choose a day with low wind, and as you open your seed package, be sure to read and set aside all the planting instructions for future reference.
Dump your seed in a bucket or can that's convenient.
You'll notice a good wildflower seed mixture includes seeds of many sizes and types.
Next, we recommend that you add clean builders or sandbox sand at a ratio of about 10 to 1 with your seed.
The sand will be a great help in sowing your seed evenly.
To be sure that your seed and sand are well mixed, an easy way is to pour it from one bucket to another.
This is Rob Towne, the general manager of the Vermont Wildflower Farm, who seeds several meadow areas on our property each year.
When we start, we generally divide our sand seed mixture into two equal parts.
Pour the sand seed mixture into two convenience pails or whatever containers you have.
Then take one of those pails, distribute that sand and seed over the entire site.
Take the second one, going in a different direction, and distribute the sand and seed again over the entire site.
In this manner, you have a very evenly distributed seed so that your flowers are going to be well scattered over the entire area
and not have clumps of over-concentrated flowers or gaps where there's nothing at all.
For large sites, some people prefer to use a mechanical sower like this cyclone seeder.
It has a canvas sac that you pour the sand and seed into, a hand crank that, as you turn it,
distributes the seed quite evenly around you as you walk across the site.
The only disadvantage is, this requires you to literally run in order to keep up with the rather rapid distribution of the seed out of the aperture.
So, generally I prefer to use the old-fashioned broadcast method.
I take the container, handfuls of sand, and literally broadcast the seed over the site.
This way I have much more control and I know where my seed is going.
If you're unsure of your hand seeding talents, just practice a few times with pure sand to get the hang of it.
It's actually quite easy.
You can see how Rob sews the sand and seed mixture with an even motion to be sure that the flower seed goes down evenly.
The light colored sand also helps him see where he's been on the darker colored soil.
One of the most important parts of wildflower seeding is what is called seed-to-soil contact,
making sure the wildflower seed is compressed right into the fresh soil.
The best tool that we've found for this process is a lawn roller, always available at Randall stores.
Once your ground is clear and your seed is evenly sown and compressed, the installation of your meadow is complete.
Do not cover the seed. Do not rake or disturb it in any way. All it needs now is moisture and sun.
By the way, at this point, birds may discover your seed and stage a feast.
We get panicky calls about this all the time, and if birds do arrive, just relax.
They often eat some of our newly sown seed too, but never enough to do any real damage.
Reviewing the installation process, we've covered six distinct steps.
You'll need to select the site, clear the ground, loosen the soil, sow your seed evenly,
compress it into the surface of the bare soil, and then keep the area moist.
In fact, the only enemy your freshly seeded meadow has to face now is lack of moisture.
If nature has supplied good, moist conditions, you won't have to do a thing.
But if the ground dries out, you'll need to water. Just a light spray, of course, so it doesn't wash away your seeding.
With good weather and good moisture, your wildflowers will begin to germinate in one to two weeks, even sooner in warmer climates.
As the young seedlings sprout, they enter the most vulnerable stage of their lives.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that young wildflower plants are indestructible.
Even though it may be a rugged species, a young wildflower seedling is just as vulnerable as a young tomato plant in your vegetable garden.
A hard frost will kill it, and lack of moisture can be just as fatal.
You must keep your new meadow watered for about the first five or six weeks after germination.
If the little plants wilt, water them immediately.
Then, when the seedlings are about eight to ten inches tall, they're pretty self-sufficient.
Once established, wildflowers are famous for wading through droughts for water.
In severe conditions, they may wilt and delay their bloom, but after their initial vulnerable stage,
they're generally tougher than other garden plants and will come through just fine.
If you've planted annual wildflowers, the ones that live just one year, or a mixture of annuals and perennials,
the annual bloom should begin just a few weeks after the seeds sprout.
There is a good meadow gardening reason for planting annual wildflowers along with the more permanent perennials,
in addition to the annual's beauty and season-long bloom.
Most people are trying to create what is called a permanent meadow,
an area that they can enjoy for years without replanting.
Since most perennials don't bloom until their second season,
the annual flowers in most regional mixtures not only give you lavish color the first year,
they also help fill the ground and keep out unwanted weeds and grasses.
Then, since annuals live only one season, they're dead and gone your second year,
making room for your expanding clumps of perennials,
the more permanent plants that will bloom year after year.
Many meadow gardeners ask us, how do I tell the weeds from the wildflowers?
And it isn't easy, until the flowers bloom.
As soon as your wildflowers begin to bloom, you can usually tell the unwanted weeds.
A good test is to identify plants that are not evenly scattered over your meadow.
If they're just here and there, or all in one clump,
chances are they're not from your even seeding.
If there are just a few weeds, most meadow gardeners simply ignore them
and let them grow to become part of their natural meadow.
But if you have a lot and want to remove them, here's what to do.
Once you're quite sure of the plants that you don't want, do the obvious thing, pull them.
Many fast-growing weeds are annuals, so they will not be back next year.
But if you let them bloom, just like grass, they'll be back in droves.
So if you have them, try to pull all the weeds you can.
It's a great investment of time for the later beauty of your meadow.
As the weeks go by, the wild annuals put on a show
that most new meadow gardeners find almost unbelievable.
At the Wildflower Farm, we receive hundreds of letters each year
from gardeners who are absolutely amazed at the non-stop color of their annual meadows.
Our meadow stopped traffic.
The neighbors couldn't believe it.
Are both common remarks.
And we also always hear, each day was different.
Something new blooming all the time.
I had big bouquets all over the house all summer.
And constant bloom outside too.
All with no fertilizer and no work.
A good mixture of wild annuals goes on and on
with a rising rainbow of color right into fall.
Most meadows have grown to at least waist-high by the end of the season
and stay in full bloom until they're cut down by frost
or in frost-free climates by intense summer heat.
And here's a question that everyone asks.
Will the annuals come back?
Well, most all wild annuals do self-sow.
Which means that as flowers fade one by one,
they ripen their seed and drop it to the ground.
Self-sowing means that this seed will sprout and grow into a new flowering plant the next season.
This will happen only if your annual flower seed falls on bare ground.
And the healthy wildflower meadow is anything but bare.
What usually happens is that most seed falls on leaves or neighboring plants
so it can't regrow the following season.
Some will.
The amount of annual color you have your second season
will depend on how much of the annual seed found bare ground to grow in.
But the annual bloom is always much reduced the second season
as the perennials begin to bloom.
So if you want strong annual color every year,
it's best to put in some fresh annual seed each season.
The annuals are so beautiful
that many people have begun seeding only annual wildflowers.
Of course, they have to prepare the ground and seed each year,
but they feel it's worth it.
Once your first season with wildflowers is over,
your meadow is ready for its yearly mowing.
It's best to use a trimmer or to set your mower at a high setting,
up to about four inches if possible.
This way you won't be scalping the crowns of your perennial wildflowers,
which will be blooming for you next season.
Mow after everything has been killed by frost.
That way your mowing will disperse all the ripened flower seed into your soil,
and we normally leave the mowed down mulch on the meadow through the winter,
as you see here.
But this isn't the main reason for mowing.
A wildflower meadow must be mowed once a year
to keep out tree seedlings and other woody, brushy growth.
In an area that was once forested,
an open field will revert to trees in less than a decade.
Here's an example.
Our field in the foreground is mowed each fall.
Our neighbor's property in the back of the picture was mowed four years ago.
In just four years, it's easy to see the forest moving in.
You don't want this to happen to your wildflower meadow.
When your growing season begins the second year,
you have a whole new experience in store.
Since you mowed in the fall, there's no work to do.
Just watch as warm weather comes
and your perennial flowers literally burst into growth.
Here we see early spring growth of a second year meadow about to bloom.
These perennial wildflowers, which made just leaf and root growth last year,
are about to give us their first bloom.
In most meadows, you'll notice the daisies among the early growth,
since they are early bloomers,
and perhaps the dusty silvery gray of Dames rocket plants
that usually bloom along with the daisies.
It's easy to recognize your wild lupine plants,
the ones with the palm-shaped leaves.
And this is the time to renovate any spots in your meadow
which haven't grown well or have already been invaded
with grasses or unwanted weeds.
Once you can see your perennial plants clearly as you can hear,
you can bring in a tiller and spot-till the weak spots.
Many gardeners wait until the third or later years,
but many do it every spring.
You can till carefully around the good growth that you want to preserve
and then add fresh flower seed in the open spots that you've created.
It's a lot like repairing bare spots in a lawn,
and it kills two birds with one stone.
It gets rid of unwanted growth before it becomes a problem,
and it allows you to add more annual wildflower seed
so you'll have the prolific annual bloom that everybody loves
right along with your perennials.
After just a week or two of very strong growth,
the wild perennials are in full bud
and ready to burst into beautiful bloom.
Daisies, lupine, dame's rocket,
and other early perennials are in full bloom this year,
even before a newly planted annual seed.
So your wildflower season starts earlier than ever,
and what a joy it can be.
This is only the beginning of the perennial parade of color
that goes on all season,
depending on each wildflower-specific season of bloom.
Mid-season brings one of America's most popular native meadow flowers,
the black-eyed susan, into full bloom,
along with many other meadow favorites.
If you added annual seed this year,
by now the annuals add their color to the show.
Purple coneflower and other late-blooming perennials
like goldenrods, the asters, and wild sunflowers
can keep your meadow in bloom right until frost.
After a few years, most meadow gardeners have found
all kinds of ways to enjoy their wildflowers.
Most want to see both the annual and perennial bloom,
so they've set aside strips or patches
to seed with the annuals each year.
Many mow winding paths through their meadows,
create sitting areas to observe the flowers,
and of course, the birds and butterflies that they attract.
Welcome to Wildflower Meadow Gardening.
You'll find your wildflowers can open up a whole new world
of serenity and endless enjoyment
of the natural environment that you've created.
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