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

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 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, the use of heavy machinery and herbicide, our farmland was a more diverse landscape with many summer flowering weeds, legumes and specialised local crops. Sainfoin for example was only grown on the Cotswold Hills and Hampshire Downs providing a high protein feed for hard working horses. The flower of Sainfoin (pictured) attracted bees with great excitement. Borage is another crop long gone from our working countryside and although white (and to a lesser extent red) clover has made a certain resurgence in use over recent years, it rarely has the opportunity to flower before being cut for silage or grazed by intensively farmed animals. Again, cornfield annuals have all but disappeared from the sterile cereal crops cultivated for the ultimate yields of commercial production. So these bygone flowers are of our great grandfathers days, our mostly forgotten heritage and maybe the overlooked source of pollen and nectar our struggling bee and butterfly populations are really missing from their modern habitats. Sow spring to late summer.
For further information on Wildflower Meadows see our Grass Matters site