Help with “wildflower meadow” small garden

Me again 😂

So I bought these wildflower seeds so I could get some bees in my front garden. I dug is my lawn and sprinkled them all as evenly as I could. Obviously didn’t mix them up properly as you can see from my pics haha.

Anyway, I live in a terrace and all the other gardens have nice lawns etc. and now mine looks like an overgrown bunch of weeds 😂

I don’t really care and I’ve seen loads of bees already, so I’m happy, but I’d like to make it more visually pleasing if possible.

I am going to have a border on the left hand side which will be veg and I have a grape vine growing at the end, which I am getting a big trellis for next week.

So, how can I add more stuff to this to make it look better?
I would prefer wildflowers and not tulips or that kind of thing.
I also want to attract loads of insects, bees and butterflies too.

Thanks in advance 😊

I think it looks beautiful!  Sunflowers are always nice, especially the multiple-flower kind.  

I think it looks great as is too.... perhaps permies isn't the best place to look for advice to get a traditional neat and tidy garden.I am quite jealous- the wild flower seed mix I planted this year didn't come up at all!

It kind of reminds me of my favourite garden style- English cottage garden. A google will give you many photos to drool over :). If it was my garden, and I wanted to make it more conventionally 'English cottage', I would work to separate plants out into clumps and maybe mulch around them.A few rocks 'liberated' from a road side can also provide interest and separation, as can trellises and tipis made of sticks or logs. I suspect from the £ symbol you may be in England, and hopefully that's a style your neighbours are familiar with?

I might also add something easy care like a wild or semi wild rose or climbing rose, rudbeckia, ditch lilies,  echinacea, bee balm,  cranesbill, or poppies. Our delphinium is glorious right now. Milkweed, butterfly bush, and sedum are other things my bees like.  An early flowering edible shrub might even work.  I know you specifically said no tulips, but I might consider specie tulips-tiny and glorious, the wildflowers tulips are decended from-, Siberian squill, and crocuses for early season interest. Plants often look more deliberate if they are grouped and clustered and if you mix tall plants and short. It also really helps with weeding long term.   I have no idea what was in your mix, but take a look to see what's in it and bloom times- in addition to helping you weed next year, bees and polinators often struggle with finding early season nectar . I might look at something climbing for the fence next year- I am growing peas and scarlet runners on our front porch rails (yum).

Hi Ga,

Some of the best pollinator friendly plants, are actually edible plants. Grow various herbs or leafy greens in a landscape design, and let those herbs or greens go to seed. Have your perennials organized in permanent landscape, while your annuals fill in the gaps. Mints, Basil, Oragino, Dill, Coriander, Bok Choy, Lettuce, Carrots, Chives, Elephant Garlic, and even Radishes, all make great pollinator habitat in flower. So many edible or useful floweres exist, some cool growing, some warm: Nasturtiums are eddible, Chamomile makes great flower tea, Pansys are edible, and like to flower in the cool season. So your cool growers often won't flower in the cool, but give you lots of food; then flower in the warm. Many of the varieties mentioned are prolific seeders, so collecting the seed may help keep some of the dominant ones, from taking over the entire patch, then just seed them where you want them. Other options to reduce unwanted spread, are harvest some of the young Dill seed, for usage in food.

I hope that helps!

I really like the meadow look! I’m sure the bee also do. I’m planning to overseed a wildflower mix into my zone 3/4 lawn behind my shed as well as starting a few flats of select perennials to give them a bit of a head start against the conventional lawn. I think that if you keep up with dead heading things then your neighbors will think of it more as a tended garden than a bunch of overgrown weeds in your lawn. That’s my plan at least.

I agree with Rob. If you take the wilted blossoms off of things that you aren't deliberately letting go to seed, or the most visible of them, at least, it will appear more ordered.

I don't know how much freedom you have with this sort of thing, but honestly, I would take up the pathway and make a winding one of woodchips. That would add definition and edge that you could use to give things the appearance of order, constrained by the path winding through it and the fencing on the perimeter.

Another option is to use taller-growing plants, like the aforementioned sunflower, in the same way you'd use a hedge. You can use growing plants in the same way you'd use solid objects to break up a space, and planting a single type of flower in a strip, or in a clump, to add the semblance of order and intent will do all the things you need to be able to brush off crotchety, conservative neighbours' complaints, and whatever bylaw officer might happen by.

But let us know how you do. Thanks for the pictures, and good luck.

-CK