Your Lawn, Your Quilt

Most lawns have wildflowers from daisies to dandelions and clovers. Join the growing trend to to let them flower by giving your mower a rest. It takes on average six weeks for a wildflower to grow, flower and seed. But you can do more than just 'no-mow-may'.....

Every month there are different lawn flowers in bloom. This picture is April, with primroses and dandelions, but wood anemone, dog violet, lesser celandine and of course daisies all look great in lawn at this time too.

So better than just one six week lawn, try a patchwork lawn, where one patch is in flower while other areas are mown. over the course of the season the flower patches move around.

You may find your lawn does not have many wildflowers in it. Try raising your own plants from seed you can collect from wildflowers along road verges and wild places. A seed sown in summer should be big enough to plant out by late autumn. Once they are established they should spread.

Jurby Airfield — In August wild thyme and harebells are great wildflowers for a lawn on sandy soil

A patchwork lawn mimics natural prairies. Here grazing herbivores will graze a patch, then move on as a herd. This leaves a vast patchwork habitat of cropped grass, flowers and seeding flowers.

MWT's Community Ranger, Hannah Philips is hoping to work with local communities to create patchwork meadows in public open spaces. See her new leaflet (below blog)

One of the great advantages of a six week meadow is that the vegetation can still be easily mown by most domestic mowers. The grass soon recovers and will be a lush lawn again after a few mows. Having a succession of nectar plants is best for pollinators like bumblebees too,