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Brief Guide:
Sow mid spring to late summer
into a well prepared seedbed
Sowing Rate:
5- 10 grams per square metre (20.00
kg per acre)
1.00
kg covers 100- 200 square metres
80% Meadow Grass
Seeds
35% certified Hard Fescue
festuca ovina
20% certified Crested Dogstail
cynosurus
cristatus
20% certified Fine Fescue
festuca rubra litoralis
10% certified Smooth Stalked Meadowgrass
poa pratensis
10% certified Smaller
Catstail phleum
pratense bertolonii
5% certified Bentgrass
agrostis capillaris |
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20% Agricultural
Flowers & Native Cornfield Annuals
Vetch
vicia sativa Sainfoin
onobrychis viciifolia
Borage borago officinalis
Corn Cockle agrostemma githago
Crimson Clover trifolium incarnatum
Field Poppy
papervar rhoeas Birdsfoot
Trefoil lotus corniculatus
Yellow Trefoil
medicago lupulina Alfalfa
medicago sativia
Corn
Marigold chrysanthemum
segetum
Alsike
Clover trifolium hybridum
Phacelia
phacelia tanacetifolia
Corn Chamomile anthemis arvensis
Cornflower centaurea cyanus
Red Clover trifolium pratensis
White Clover trifolium repens
Chicory
cicorium intybus
Yarrow
achillea millefolium
Burnet
sanguisorba minor
Parsley
petroselium crispum
Additional Information:
Before the introduction of intensive farming methods, powered agricultural machinery and extensive herbicide use, our farmland was a significantly more diverse landscape with many flowering forage clovers, herbs and specialised local crops. Sainfoin for example was mainly grown on the Cotswold Hills and Hampshire Downs providing a high protein feed for hard working farm horses. The flower of Sainfoin (pictured) was said to 'attract Bumblebees with great excitement'. Borage is another example of a specialised crop which has all but disappeared from the working countryside and although white and red clover have made a small resurgence in use over recent years, they rarely have the opportunity to flower before being cut for silage or devoured by grazing stock. Similarly, cornfield annuals have no place in modern cereal production which is largely cultivated in a sterile environment for maximum yield. We believe these bygone flowering crops and the somewhat 'outdated' ways of our great grandfathers may have provided a valuable source of pollen and nectar our now struggling Bumblebee and butterfly populations are desperately missing from their current habitat.
For further information on
Wildflower Meadows
see our Grass Matters
site
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