It was at last year’s SALTEX at the NEC I managed to persuade Derek Smith from DLF to donate some wildflower seed for me to create a wildflower area in my daughter’s back garden - on the understanding I would write about my experiences of creating a wildflower area. 

He kindly gave me a bag of Colour Boost mix of wildflower seed and the relevant instructions for sowing the seed. So last September myself, and my son in law Kyle, took it upon ourselves to create a wildflower area. 

Having dug some foundations for his garage, we were left with a few tons of clay and subsoil to get rid of and came up with the idea of creating a banked feature in the garden.

After a few days of moving this soil about we finally manged to landscape the garden to create a lawn and wildflower banking backdrop to the garden.
It was on these banks that we would so the wildflower seed, hopefully seeing the fruits of our labour the following summer. 

I’m glad to say we were presently surprised at the success of the planting and have seen a transformation of the garden.

There were several unwanted weeds we removed and left the rest to mature and flower. 

Come autumn we will wait for the wildflower seeds to re-disperse and then come March / April time we will cut down and collect arisings and leave to regrow, looking forward to a second year of flowering.

Rewilding

The sowing of wildflower seed mixes and the planting of perennial flowers have become  popular in recent years - with many local authorities turning transforming their parks and open spaces into swaths of colour.

The popularity of this regime has been endorsed by many local authorities as part of their rewilding strategies. We are now seeing vast areas of grass verges and parks being turned into wildflower areas. 

The effect of rewilding is changing the way we manage parks and public open spaces. Gone are the days where we regularly mow grass verges. We are lucky now, if they get mowed at all.

With many councils facing bankruptcy and drastic funding issues, plenty are now having to find new ways of managing their landscaped assets.

Few councils are now box cylinder mowing their grass areas weekly - more likely cutting every 3-5 weeks with flail mowers and leaving the clippings to fly.

Having recently driven through Birmingham and other towns where they are leaving the grass to grow, I’ve found it can often lead to other worrying issues in terms of sight lines, litter, rubbish and possibly fire risks.

I often wonder if there were to be a major fire incident, councils would have to rethink this policy of allowing these swathes of grass verges to grow unmanaged.

I believe there is a real need for councils to re-evaluate their mowing and maintenance strategies to deliver a safe and environmentally acceptable urban space environment. 

I am sure monies can still be saved, and efficiencies improved, if we were to relook at the way we maintain and manage our parks and urban grass verges / open spaces.

I personally believe that we have the machinery, technology and endeavour to rethink the way we manage our landscape assets. 

We need to ensure these areas are safe and managed in a way to keep them looking tidy and manageable.

A combination of grass mowing regimes can be implemented along with rewilding and the planting of perennial and annual planting schemes to enhance and improve the aesthetics of these areas.

I agree in the past many local authorities were cutting too large expanses of grassed areas on a regular basis. But I firmly believe, with a change in approach, we can still reduce costs and enhance the environmental value of the green space we are managing.

We should be retaining the horticultural skills we have acquired over many years and implementing these with the new ideas we have seen in recent years in terms of tree, shrub and floral and rewilding plantings.

There is still a place for regular mowing of grass areas along with formal spring and summer bedding schemes, sitting alongside new perennial planting and annual seed flowering schemes. We just need to consider the right maintenance regimes for any given area.