2015 at Wildflower Turf Ltd saw inspired wildflower garden designs from the very best in the business, providing us with some fantastic inspiration for future garden projects. Here are a few of our favourites.
1.Whirlpool of Wildflowers
Designer: Ann Marie Powell
Contractor: Garden House Design
It’s fair to say that when these pictures landed on the desk, they completely blew us away. A completely underused area of a garden, as it was so difficult to manage, became a wondrous whirlpool of wildflowers. Other than a few planted beds around the seating area, the design was almost entirely based around steep banks of wildflowers, creating a stunning oasis of calm and nature. Truly beautiful and we hope an award winner in 2016 for one of our Accredited Installers, Garden House Design.
Site before work began.
2. Wild about White
Design and Installation: Hendy Curzon
New to many this year, was our Wildflower Earth product. A pre-seeded growing medium, ideally installed in Spring or Autumn, it is an easy to apply product that requires very little ground preperation and like Wildflower Turf, can see your meadow established within a couple of months. Hendy Curzon are well known for creating stunning large-scale garden schemes, harmonising modern design and natural prairie elements. This particular project used a mix of only white wildflowers within the pre-seeded growing medium. These pictures are the first of this wonderful scheme from the Autumn, using swathes of wildflowers to encourage you to wander through the different areas of the garden. We look forward to featuring a lot more of this project next year and re-visiting this garden in the height of summer.
3. Informal Formal
Sean McGeachy is an estate manager for a property in Kent and his commitment to creating an informal/formal garden has been another stand out project to witness this year. Using a low performing and under used rose garden, the area was completely transformed to create a wild haven amongst the structure and magnificence of formal topiary and yew hedging. Within 3 months the garden went from mud patch to meadow. Since talking to Sean about enhancements and maintenance, he has now underplanted the meadow with 1000’s of spring bulbs and extended wildflowers into other areas of the garden. We can’t wait to see more of this project next year.
4. A colourful, low maintenance solution.
Design and Installation: Bluestones Garden Design
Sara at Bluestones is a wildflower guru, another of our long-standing Accredited Installers and has worked on a number of different projects using our products. This particular client wanted a low maintenance solution with plenty of colour and so opted for our Border Turf. Sara installed 270m² into this garden in Abingdon in July. This picture was taken in mid-October with the area still looking vibrant. I love the simplicity of the wall and the chairs set amongst a sea of pictorial flowers.
5. Immersing a seating area in Wildflower
Design and Installation: Slate Grey
This beautiful, immersive project by Richard Ayles at Slate Grey Design, used a border earth mix (native and non-native wildflowers) installed in mid May. The fleurific picture is taken in early August, just 10 weeks later. Bar a few early problems with deer and rabbits that led to the area having to be fenced off for a while, this meadow was a mass of colour through late summer and early autumn.
And it doesn’t have to be all about inspired garden design to make a difference, in just the smallest areas of garden or verge you can create a green corridor for wildlife and bring a dull area to life.
6. Brilliant Borders
Installer: A Garden for all Seasons
So simple and yet transformative. A boring driveway is transformed from the monoculture of lawn to a wildlife magnet, providing colour, interest and a warm welcome to the house.
7. Difficult to Manage Bank
This has to be the most brilliant use of a bank that we have ever seen in a garden. Normally they are a gardeners headache, so difficult to maintain and uninspiring to look at. Not this one… it just screams ‘Come and Play’.
8. Wildflower Corridors
And finally… this wildflower roadside verge in Henley has been transformed from a muddy patch outside a newly constructed garden wall. On what can be an otherwise difficult to maintain patch, laying out 10 rolls of Wildflower Border Turf created an instant meadow, with just 2 hours of work. Thanks to Norma and Ken for sharing your picture in Spring this year. If everyone created just a small patch of biodiverse habitat such as this, we would be well on the way to making a huge impact to pollinators across the country.
I hope there is plenty of inspiration here, whatever your size of garden. If you are planning a wildflower patch for next year it might be worth getting some advice now on how to prepare the area ready for a spring installation. Call us on 01256 771222 should you need some advice. If you are thinking about a larger area, why not take advantage of the expertise of our Accredited Installers. We have 220 trained experts around the country who will be able to offer you the best advice and great prices for preparation and installation of your meadow. Find your local wildflower expert by adding your postcode to our ‘Find an Installer‘ page.