Growing wildflowers from seed
Growing wildflowers is good for wildlife and brings the beauty of the English countryside into your back garden.
Embrace the natural look with UK native wildflowers – we’ve mixes to suit every outside space so it’s just a question of choosing the right varieties for your garden.
Which wildflowers grow well in soil?
To get the best out of native wildflowers it’s important to choose those that suit your ground. Most prefer poor soil, with viper’s-bugloss, and mullein best in sunny, dry soils, and meadow buttercup, cowslips and oxeye daisies good on clay soils. You can either create a wildflower border with a mix that suits your soil, or work wildflowers into an existing border with foxgloves, primroses and cornflowers ideal for this.
Which wildflowers are perennial?
Among the best perennial native British wildflowers are yarrow, ox-eye daisy, red campion, wild pansy, buttercups, field scabious, common knapweed and bird’s-foot-trefoil.
How to plant wildflower seeds
The easiest way to plant your wildflower seeds is to sow them directly into the ground in spring. Choose a spot in the garden in full sun. Wildflowers thrive in neglected, infertile ground so make sure to pick a spot that hasn’t been regularly fertilised in the months before sowing. Hoe the chosen ground to remove any stones and weeds. Scatter your wildflower seeds so they’re evenly spread and gently rake in the seeds and water using a fine spray. Alternatively, sow rows of wildflower seed mix in the veg patch or in gaps in the border for a summer colour bomb.
You can still enjoy wildflower seeds if you don’t have space to sow into the ground. Simply sow your wildflower seeds into a window box or container full of multi-purpose compost, and water well. You should see your seeds germinating a few weeks after sowing.
