A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Growing Wildflowers in Existing Hay Field?

Hi everyone,

We live on a farm and our house sits in the middle of a hay field. The hay gets cut in late spring/early Summer and then, weather permitting, early Fall. In between times, we have some flowers--Queen Anne's Lace, Butterfly weed and two colors of clover to name a couple. All these flowers exist naturally and return each year. I would like to add more flowers but am not sure how to plant, when to plant or what kind of flowers to plant under these circumstances.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thank you,

Denise
SW PA, zone 6a

You would want to plant other wildflowers that reseed. Poppies, cosmos, coreopsis, larkspur and bachelor buttons are a few that come to mind. You can also buy wildflower mixes- easier than buying individual seed packets. You can either scatter the seeds in the fall or early spring.

Denise, I would post this in one of the main forums, IT will get more traffic.
This is different, Jusr click on Forums, and there are oddles of subforums and topics!
Kim

I don't have any specific recommendations for flowers, but here are some thoughts. First, I'd be sure to include ONLY native species-- wildflowers that naturally occur in your area. If you introduce non-native species, you run a HUGE risk of loosing those flowers that you already have because non-natives compete for resources and often over-take the natives. Think kudzu in the South! That said...

http://www.westernpawildflowers.com/ is a pretty indepth site with information about western PA wildflowers. You'd want to consider time of bloom, annual vs perennial (but annual wildflowers self-seed), color, etc. Looking just briefly, this site doesn't give you exactly all the info you'd need, but it's a good start.

WVU has a similar site that you might be able to gather some of the missing info from: http://www.wvu.edu/~Agexten/hortcult/flowers/wldflwrs.htm

Wildseed Farms is a seed company that offers "regional mixes". There are six mixes recommended for your area (Northeastern, Butterfly, and so on). I don't know if all of the seeds in a mix would be native species, but you could easily cross-reference with the sites I mentioned above. Their main website is: http://www.wildseedfarms.com/ and the map with seed mixes is: http://www.wildseedfarms.com/mix_main_page.htm

[I've been to Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg, TX. I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven! Acres and acres of wildflowers. Go if you ever get the chance.]

One other comment-- after poking around a bit (googling "sow wildflowers") I see that most folks are telling you to clear the "bed" of weeds first. By weeds, they are probably referring to your native species, which of course you want to keep! Fall is the best time to sow the seed, perhaps after the Fall hay cut?

Hope some of this helps! Have fun!!