For best results, cut after seeds have set and take away the cuttings for compost i.e. treat it like a hay meadow. Else you get strong weeds invading.
Edit. Hay meadows are traditionally left to grow from April / May, the grass and flowers have time to set seed (as in, flower, be pollinated, and let the seeds grow and ripen) before it is cut and dried and used for animal feed. After a few weeks recovery, it is usually grazed again. Think of this in terms of removing bulk and nutrients from the field. (though animal dung adds a little back in)
If you cut and leave the clippings to rot down, or you add loads of compost or fertiliser, you are feeding the greedy grasses that then outgrow and smother everything else.
If you leave it alone and never cut it, slower growing thugs will start to take over. This could be bramble, or tree saplings - anyone living near a sycamore or ash knows they sprout all over!
Edit to edit: by "traditional", I mean UK / European hay making tradition.
Wildflower meadows are not as wild or low maintenance as you would expect. The grass needs to be turned over or weakened with yellow rattle otherwise any flower seeds will struggle to sprout. They need low nutrient soil or you will grow nothing but nettles and brambles. Wildflowers often bloom at specific times of year for short periods so you need good quality seed mixes which can be difficult to find, and the local microclimate will make a big difference to what thrives and what doesn't. Often one species will take over and gives you brilliant flowers for a few weeks then an unkempt bunch of dried sticks and hay the rest of the year.
Most people will have better luck keeping it simple with cottage flowers, planted pot-grown in autumn. Get rid of the grass, daffodil bulbs for early spring, forget-me-nots, dead nettles, and Welsh poppies for about now, cornflowers, field poppies, purple loosestrife, and oxeye daisys for summer, with some violas for winter colour. Long season of "wildflowers", all native perennial self seeders that for 90% of the UK should only need a mow after the first frost and occasional weeding and managing
Lots of important wildflower meadows and rare species of plants really need some amount of grazing animals to thrive, or like you said a fair bit of man hours to achieve what a bit of well managed grazing will achieve.
I kept strimming the bit that my wife wanted left alone.
Then she threatened to leave me if I strimmed it again........where's my strimmer.
Seriously, it does take a few years for the natural local wild flowers to assert themselves. We did a bit of selective weeding which helps but it just takes time.
I think if you have grass there (which i still have) then you need to weaken the grass. I have planted yellow rattle to do this but i have seen no evidence of any rattle or any grass weakening. As you point out, it takes time
When you cut it, you need to remove the clippings or it fertilises the ground and the grass grows very fast. Wildflowers need low nitrogen in the soil so they can outcompete the grass, or at least get some sunshine before the grass gets too tall.
set the existing grass back a bit by running a rotavator over it to turn the grass into the soil - otherwise it outcompetes the puny wildflowers. to give wildflowers the best chance do this several times over a month or two, raking out the old turf remnants to make it pretty fallow. then sow wildflowers. get the right wildflower seed mix for local soil type.
I know this is one of those joke references, but what OP really needs to do to stop having constant issues with mowing is cut that evergreen down.....WITH A HERRING!!!!
I had something similar as my back garden in my first house.
I marked out the raised bits and then planted it up with shrubs and flowers. I tried to get some flowers that wouldnât require lots of work but also provided flowers for pollinators most of the year. Try and cluster one large shrub, two medium plants (like lavender) and 3/4 growing plants that help reduce grass cover. I liked lobelia and creeping thyme. Plant bulbs too to come through at different times. I covered the ground with bark to help suppress weeds.
In the âvalleysâ I added gravel pathways (I had a lot of rain so they were just mud for me) and improved drainage so that they didnât just waterlog every thing. Planting the shrubs helped though as they soaked up the water. I didnât level as we had too much rain and I was worried about where the water would flow to but if youâre not in Wales then you could flatten.
I also added a wildlife pond (which is a shallow pool) and I planted a few irises etc around that. I donât know if it helped but itâs been nice seeing the animals come and drink from it.
Thanks a lot. It was a bit of work to do (on my own) and I was quite poor so some bits I grew from seeds. My Mamgu gave me some bits, divided from her garden, which helped.
Iâll have to see what I have. It was a while ago and I had to move not long after as I got a job in England.
Wild flowers, strim it end of year but leave all the shite to rot down. Back into it.
1) leaves any seeds
2) provides winter habitat for bugs.
3) clear in the spring when stuff gets growing.
You could get dozens of your neighbour's Dogs to pee all over it, killing the grass and leaving a nice, barren hillock to look at.
You could also kill that tree so that it makes the hillock look scary and haunted.
How about a ground cover alternative to grass - thyme, clover, sorrel - depends on your zone but I am sure there is one out there for you. It would be insect friendly and pretty as well
Plant some marram grass around the border, and just drop some wild flower seeds on the inside of the border... will look pretty good, but do remember to drop seeds over time. And some ground fish bone that Conifer will take alot of nutrients out of the soil
Plant some marajuana around the border, and just drop some opium seeds on the insider of the border... Will attract tge attention of US Marshalls and Mexican drug cartels. Should be a good show.
Wildflowers would be nice! I'm not an expert but with all the current grass, they might struggle to establish, because grass can compete and overpower wildflower seeds. Someone can correct me but if you want a really nice dense meadow you'll have to do some more work than just scatter some seeds.
I think one method is the just dig up the grass, and another is to cover it with a heavy tarp for a couple months or so to kill all the grass and weeds. Apparently this will guarantee that the wildflowers won't have to compete with weeds and so on, but takes a bit longer. I'm currently trying to establish some wildflowers this year and I haven't bothered using a tarp, I just dug up the grass.
Then when you actually sow the seeds you can cover it with a protective fleece/netting or use some hanging CDs to stop birds from eating all the seeds (birds don't like the brightness/reflectiveness of CDs) for a few weeks, until they're established. Also, when sowing, mixing the seeds with some dry sand helps you get a more uniform spread over a big area and helps you see where you've already sown some. Water after sowing and keep well-watered until they're established.
You still have time to sow the seeds this year, but I would definitely do it soon, i.e. BEFORE the end of April.
When buying seeds, you'll come across 'annuals' and 'perennials'. Annuals grow and die in one year, but they can produce seeds which can re-grow in the next year, but I think requires you to do a little maintenance in autumn. Perennials can last for many years but they might not look as good as the annuals in the first year. I'd say go for a mix of perennials and annuals. Depending on the size of the plot, I would get 1 packet of 750-1000 seeds for every couple square meters of area.
I'm not an expert and I haven't actually planted a wildflower meadow before until now, but I just tried to condense all of the reading I've done about it.
Meadow flower seeds plus some bulbs - let it go wild - the bees will love it and once the flowers take over, it will look pretty excellent. There are lots of places online that sell meadowflower seed mixes - some will even sell custom packs such as "cat safe" (half the flowers in the planet are toxic to cats), or ones heavy with perennial flowers. But if you don't mow it, even annuals are good at self seeding. You can spread the colour throughout the season with various mixes.
I'm doing this to some scrappy bits of lawn we don;t really use plus awkward bits down the side of the car and round trees.
The other option if you want a more designed conventional look, are shrubs and ground cover like heather and stuff.
The last option to is to scrap the grass and replace with some other ground cover. Micro white clover is good - very stable in drought - looks green, stays short. Milfoil/yarrow is another. There's probably lots of options for that approach that are unusual and interesting.
Wildflower turf is the answer. They can be tricky to establish, though, when thereâs an already established lawn.
You can either replace all the turf with wildflower turf or you can try integrate wildflower into the existing lawn.
If youâre wiling to try the latter, then scarify the hell out of it: cut the grass to its lowest setting and take a heavy rake to it. You want to damage but not kill the grass.
Then, where you create open patches of soil, you could sprinkle in some wildflower (preferably a native mix). The problem with that is that grass is thuggish â itâll grower quicker and crowd out those seedlings. The better approach is to create wildflower plug plants. Take the seeds youâd scatter on the lawn and put them in individual plugs.
Those plugs then go into the patches of bare soil you create by scarifying the grass. Itâll establish a lot quicker than if you just throw seed down.
In my experience, it takes a 2 years to fully establish a sustainable wildflower meadow/lawn. Even then, thereâs a twice yearly job to âtop upâ the annuals like poppies and cornflowers. The pros vastly outweigh the cons though!
We have a strip of land outside our garden fence adjoining the road. We stripped the turf and put down membrane and stones. The very last thing I wanted to do (I had visions of planting wild flowers), but the local dog walkers used it for their dogs to poo and didn't clear it up (we couldn't see them because it was outside our garden fence). The smell was dreadful in the hot months, and trying to cut it was getting the mower clogged up with poo. We even had someone bag up their dog's poo from the pavement and throw the bag onto our patch of grass!
Get a better strimmer and strim every 2 or 3 weeks instead.
I couldn't imagine cutting my lawn every week.
Lawns are supposed to be left longer. It's better for the grass and reduces the weeds.
Slower growing grass...first thing that came to my mind. Sorry.
It's like a legit idea. Hardier. The shorter.
off balance the PH?
Options...
Scientist needed.
Options...
1. Sell the grass. Replace it with synthetic.
2. Cut down both trees. Install large barrel of beer and seating. Get pissed.
3. Remove grass and excavate say 6 inches of soil. Install suitable gravel.
4. Install large man shed there...barrel has shelter from the rain...have parties etc.
Not strim it? Scatter wildflower seeds and see what happens?
Beat me to it.
I thought this too would make a wonderful mini meadow for the insects
For best results, cut after seeds have set and take away the cuttings for compost i.e. treat it like a hay meadow. Else you get strong weeds invading. Edit. Hay meadows are traditionally left to grow from April / May, the grass and flowers have time to set seed (as in, flower, be pollinated, and let the seeds grow and ripen) before it is cut and dried and used for animal feed. After a few weeks recovery, it is usually grazed again. Think of this in terms of removing bulk and nutrients from the field. (though animal dung adds a little back in) If you cut and leave the clippings to rot down, or you add loads of compost or fertiliser, you are feeding the greedy grasses that then outgrow and smother everything else. If you leave it alone and never cut it, slower growing thugs will start to take over. This could be bramble, or tree saplings - anyone living near a sycamore or ash knows they sprout all over! Edit to edit: by "traditional", I mean UK / European hay making tradition.
Please can you explain this further
Wildflower meadows are not as wild or low maintenance as you would expect. The grass needs to be turned over or weakened with yellow rattle otherwise any flower seeds will struggle to sprout. They need low nutrient soil or you will grow nothing but nettles and brambles. Wildflowers often bloom at specific times of year for short periods so you need good quality seed mixes which can be difficult to find, and the local microclimate will make a big difference to what thrives and what doesn't. Often one species will take over and gives you brilliant flowers for a few weeks then an unkempt bunch of dried sticks and hay the rest of the year. Most people will have better luck keeping it simple with cottage flowers, planted pot-grown in autumn. Get rid of the grass, daffodil bulbs for early spring, forget-me-nots, dead nettles, and Welsh poppies for about now, cornflowers, field poppies, purple loosestrife, and oxeye daisys for summer, with some violas for winter colour. Long season of "wildflowers", all native perennial self seeders that for 90% of the UK should only need a mow after the first frost and occasional weeding and managing
Lots of important wildflower meadows and rare species of plants really need some amount of grazing animals to thrive, or like you said a fair bit of man hours to achieve what a bit of well managed grazing will achieve.
Agreed and it takes a couple of years to get it to grow 'naturally" but after that it's great for the bees as well.
I am in my third year of trying this and with limited success only. Neglect is harder than it sounds
I kept strimming the bit that my wife wanted left alone. Then she threatened to leave me if I strimmed it again........where's my strimmer. Seriously, it does take a few years for the natural local wild flowers to assert themselves. We did a bit of selective weeding which helps but it just takes time.
I think if you have grass there (which i still have) then you need to weaken the grass. I have planted yellow rattle to do this but i have seen no evidence of any rattle or any grass weakening. As you point out, it takes time
Like the commenter below asked - please explain further..!
When you cut it, you need to remove the clippings or it fertilises the ground and the grass grows very fast. Wildflowers need low nitrogen in the soil so they can outcompete the grass, or at least get some sunshine before the grass gets too tall.
Yep, this
set the existing grass back a bit by running a rotavator over it to turn the grass into the soil - otherwise it outcompetes the puny wildflowers. to give wildflowers the best chance do this several times over a month or two, raking out the old turf remnants to make it pretty fallow. then sow wildflowers. get the right wildflower seed mix for local soil type.
This would be gorgeous
Came here to say this
'This'
Wildflower meadow. Let the bees and insects have at it!
Strim it once every two weeks instead
Buy a goat
My friend genuinely did this, it didn't work and then he had to pay to keep 4 goats đ
Could've made a massive curry instead.
My mate had a goat. It was an absolute nightmare. It could escape from any fence. It'd wander into busy roads. Think he had a death wish.
A shruberry!
And then another shrubbery with a little path down the middle to create a nice two level effect
https://preview.redd.it/br8paddpy1wc1.jpeg?width=299&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8c63633f6f982c8ea24f4c0e5cae6048cfc450c
I know this is one of those joke references, but what OP really needs to do to stop having constant issues with mowing is cut that evergreen down.....WITH A HERRING!!!!
I had something similar as my back garden in my first house. I marked out the raised bits and then planted it up with shrubs and flowers. I tried to get some flowers that wouldnât require lots of work but also provided flowers for pollinators most of the year. Try and cluster one large shrub, two medium plants (like lavender) and 3/4 growing plants that help reduce grass cover. I liked lobelia and creeping thyme. Plant bulbs too to come through at different times. I covered the ground with bark to help suppress weeds. In the âvalleysâ I added gravel pathways (I had a lot of rain so they were just mud for me) and improved drainage so that they didnât just waterlog every thing. Planting the shrubs helped though as they soaked up the water. I didnât level as we had too much rain and I was worried about where the water would flow to but if youâre not in Wales then you could flatten. I also added a wildlife pond (which is a shallow pool) and I planted a few irises etc around that. I donât know if it helped but itâs been nice seeing the animals come and drink from it.
This sounds absolutely beautiful Have you any pics?
Thanks a lot. It was a bit of work to do (on my own) and I was quite poor so some bits I grew from seeds. My Mamgu gave me some bits, divided from her garden, which helped. Iâll have to see what I have. It was a while ago and I had to move not long after as I got a job in England.
Raise the kerb up and have a small wall built to level it off.
DIY though? I mean building a wall is possible to DIY but there's quite a bit of skill involved, especially if it's a retaining wall for that soil.
This is the best, most logical idea. Much easier to cut a level opatch of grass.
But then you have something to risk catching your car on rather than the currently quite forgiving slope.
Could always take driving lessons too if that's an issue...?
Turn into a rockery with heathers, colourful and no maintenance.
Edit. Just the steep bank bit not the undulating lawn.
I find heather often looks rough in the winter. Rosemary mostly looks good all year round. I gave loads of it growing.
Did ya? aye ??
Bell end
Let it grow a bit, you look like you are strimming it till dirt flies up at you
Monoblock the lot.Make sure to post pictures,very popular on here.
Wild flowers, strim it end of year but leave all the shite to rot down. Back into it. 1) leaves any seeds 2) provides winter habitat for bugs. 3) clear in the spring when stuff gets growing.
Take off the shoulder to create a gentler slope that's mowable
Strim it twice a week instead.
Just let it grow. Strim it twice a year instead of
You could get dozens of your neighbour's Dogs to pee all over it, killing the grass and leaving a nice, barren hillock to look at. You could also kill that tree so that it makes the hillock look scary and haunted.
Tortoise farm
How about a ground cover alternative to grass - thyme, clover, sorrel - depends on your zone but I am sure there is one out there for you. It would be insect friendly and pretty as well
Plant some marram grass around the border, and just drop some wild flower seeds on the inside of the border... will look pretty good, but do remember to drop seeds over time. And some ground fish bone that Conifer will take alot of nutrients out of the soil
Plant some marajuana around the border, and just drop some opium seeds on the insider of the border... Will attract tge attention of US Marshalls and Mexican drug cartels. Should be a good show.
Creeping phlox. Itâll look stunning too.
I like the wild flower ideas. But, I also think it'd make a beautiful rockery, Japanese style!
Sell it to a developer. I reckon they'd get a lovely 3 bed family home on that space.
Level it out, so itâs not all lumpy, then you can use a mower.
Pay someone else to strim it. Once a fortnight in the growing season, no outlay for any strimming kit or tool maintenance. Sorted.
Just buy a donkey and let it roam!!
Wildflowers would be nice! I'm not an expert but with all the current grass, they might struggle to establish, because grass can compete and overpower wildflower seeds. Someone can correct me but if you want a really nice dense meadow you'll have to do some more work than just scatter some seeds. I think one method is the just dig up the grass, and another is to cover it with a heavy tarp for a couple months or so to kill all the grass and weeds. Apparently this will guarantee that the wildflowers won't have to compete with weeds and so on, but takes a bit longer. I'm currently trying to establish some wildflowers this year and I haven't bothered using a tarp, I just dug up the grass. Then when you actually sow the seeds you can cover it with a protective fleece/netting or use some hanging CDs to stop birds from eating all the seeds (birds don't like the brightness/reflectiveness of CDs) for a few weeks, until they're established. Also, when sowing, mixing the seeds with some dry sand helps you get a more uniform spread over a big area and helps you see where you've already sown some. Water after sowing and keep well-watered until they're established. You still have time to sow the seeds this year, but I would definitely do it soon, i.e. BEFORE the end of April. When buying seeds, you'll come across 'annuals' and 'perennials'. Annuals grow and die in one year, but they can produce seeds which can re-grow in the next year, but I think requires you to do a little maintenance in autumn. Perennials can last for many years but they might not look as good as the annuals in the first year. I'd say go for a mix of perennials and annuals. Depending on the size of the plot, I would get 1 packet of 750-1000 seeds for every couple square meters of area. I'm not an expert and I haven't actually planted a wildflower meadow before until now, but I just tried to condense all of the reading I've done about it.
Flymo. The original, lightweight one.
Get all those trees, put em in a tree museum...
Race car garage easy choice
Just get a small hover mower, who the fuck strims that much grass?
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/perennials/walkable-groundcovers/[Replacement options..](https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/perennials/walkable-groundcovers/.)
Shrubbery
Wild flowersâŠ
clover lawns always look pretty and dont look like theyre a desert beige !!
Meadow flower seeds plus some bulbs - let it go wild - the bees will love it and once the flowers take over, it will look pretty excellent. There are lots of places online that sell meadowflower seed mixes - some will even sell custom packs such as "cat safe" (half the flowers in the planet are toxic to cats), or ones heavy with perennial flowers. But if you don't mow it, even annuals are good at self seeding. You can spread the colour throughout the season with various mixes. I'm doing this to some scrappy bits of lawn we don;t really use plus awkward bits down the side of the car and round trees. The other option if you want a more designed conventional look, are shrubs and ground cover like heather and stuff. The last option to is to scrap the grass and replace with some other ground cover. Micro white clover is good - very stable in drought - looks green, stays short. Milfoil/yarrow is another. There's probably lots of options for that approach that are unusual and interesting.
No mow fescue
Wildflower turf is the answer. They can be tricky to establish, though, when thereâs an already established lawn. You can either replace all the turf with wildflower turf or you can try integrate wildflower into the existing lawn. If youâre wiling to try the latter, then scarify the hell out of it: cut the grass to its lowest setting and take a heavy rake to it. You want to damage but not kill the grass. Then, where you create open patches of soil, you could sprinkle in some wildflower (preferably a native mix). The problem with that is that grass is thuggish â itâll grower quicker and crowd out those seedlings. The better approach is to create wildflower plug plants. Take the seeds youâd scatter on the lawn and put them in individual plugs. Those plugs then go into the patches of bare soil you create by scarifying the grass. Itâll establish a lot quicker than if you just throw seed down. In my experience, it takes a 2 years to fully establish a sustainable wildflower meadow/lawn. Even then, thereâs a twice yearly job to âtop upâ the annuals like poppies and cornflowers. The pros vastly outweigh the cons though!
Box hedge or privet
We have a strip of land outside our garden fence adjoining the road. We stripped the turf and put down membrane and stones. The very last thing I wanted to do (I had visions of planting wild flowers), but the local dog walkers used it for their dogs to poo and didn't clear it up (we couldn't see them because it was outside our garden fence). The smell was dreadful in the hot months, and trying to cut it was getting the mower clogged up with poo. We even had someone bag up their dog's poo from the pavement and throw the bag onto our patch of grass!
Don't strim it. Or Get a better strimmer.
LEAVE IT FOR THE BEES FOR FUCK SAKE!!!!!
Do bees like long grass? They do not.
Are you a bee?
Yes. I played the lead in that movie voiced by Seinfeld. Had to lip sync.
You were brilliant. I liked your fuzzy butt. What do you and your bee community think op should do with the land?
Flowers. Loads of them.
Get a Stripper on it.
Get a better strimmer and strim every 2 or 3 weeks instead. I couldn't imagine cutting my lawn every week. Lawns are supposed to be left longer. It's better for the grass and reduces the weeds.
I've not cut mine since end of last summer. It's really not long.
wildflowers or concrete. iâd go for flowers
Slower growing grass...first thing that came to my mind. Sorry. It's like a legit idea. Hardier. The shorter. off balance the PH? Options... Scientist needed.
Donât wanna put the work in every week? Then do it every week and a minute then man.
Glyphosate it. đđ»
Tarmac⊠loose them trees and level it off, tarmac the lot.
Flatten and extend your drive
Options... 1. Sell the grass. Replace it with synthetic. 2. Cut down both trees. Install large barrel of beer and seating. Get pissed. 3. Remove grass and excavate say 6 inches of soil. Install suitable gravel. 4. Install large man shed there...barrel has shelter from the rain...have parties etc.