Remember me telling you about how we tried two ways to make a meadow lawn in part one? Well, numpty here decided while we wait for the seeds to take it would be a good idea to turf over them to protect them and provide some greenery. The grass outcompeted the seeds and quickly choked anything that did sprout so, this brings us to part two – creating a meadow lawn from plug plants.
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So we left off with bare soil and seeds but, we’re actually starting with a lawn that really took hold! If you’ve already got a lawn, first option is to just let it grow and see what is already in there! if you want to add plants in you will be best to use plug plants rather than seed for all but the toughest native plants.
What is a plug plant?
Plug plants are simply plants that have been given a head start, and grown to a point where you can plug them in and they’ve got a fighting chance.
There are a few places you can get wildflower plug plants if you do a search but I would recommend either of these having used both, we used Wildflower Lawns for the particular mix they provided but Habitat Aid does donate to wildlife projects which is a bonus!
Based on having a child running around and it being a lawn she could play in we went for the Low flowering lawn plant plug collection from Wild Flower Lawns and Meadows and Yellow Rattle.
Yellow what?
Yellow Rattle is the meadow-maker’s friend, especially if you’re creating a meadow from plug plants. It is a semi-parasitic wildflower that is native to the UK that weakens the grass enough to allow other things to grow. It also produces lovely yellow flowers that bugs love! If you are making a meadow – especially one from plug plants, I recommend using this plant! Apparently when the seed pods rattle it’s time to cut the lawn – which I’m resisting the urge to do because we still have some flowers!
How to prep the lawn
Not to put it too bluntly – but you need to really mistreat it. Start a few days before you’ve got rain and mow the lawn on the shortest setting, then grass rake it. the grass will look super sad, with bare patches of earth – this is perfect.
The next day, give it another rake, and then you are ready to start creating your meadow lawn from plug plants!
Planting
You should place the plants about half a meter from each other, other than that, make a little hole, and plant each plug carefully. These are still small plants so you don’t want to be too rough with them. I tried to be fairly random with how I mixed the species, to try to make it feel more natural – but I guess there’s nothing stopping you from getting creative with how you place them (taller species towards the edged etc). Once they’re in, unless it’s raining while you do it, or about to, give them a water in the evening.
That is pretty much it! I kept our new plants watered while they settled in, we had one of the driest springs on record this year so they needed a bit of looking after until they got their roots in.
Interested in making a meadow lawn? Give it a go and let it grow!