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What would you say if a green area in the car park was left repeatedly unmown or it looked as if the Local Council wasn’t doing it’s job properly by not cutting an area in the park? Would you complain? Kick up a fuss? Make noises about council tax and taxpayers money?
Well that’s precisely what residents did in Essex when a strip  of wildflower turf was installed in a car park.  However, their comments changed quite dramatically when a short while later a small sign was installed explaining that this was a wildlife area.  Suddenly it was a”great idea” and people were reportedly spotting various Butterflies & Bees and were generally over the moon with this innovative move by their Local Council.
“There’s nowt so queer as folk” (a Lancastrian saying) comes to mind, but that aside,  what a brilliant PR opportunity for Local Councils!!
The focus these days is well and truly on biodiversity, wildlife highways and the BREEAM points to be acquired when these become key considerations in redevelopment plans.
We are proud to say that our wildflower landscape and wildflower roof turf ticks all the required boxes, attracts masses of Bees & Butterflies and BREEAM…

With only a year to go before the 2012 London Olympics, preparation is underway on the finishing touches to the surrounding landscaped areas.
We are exited and proud to be chosen to grow and provide bespoke wildflower meadow turf for the athletes village.
This week we began sowing the 5,000m² which will be ready to delivery this winter.  By the time the Olympic Games begin, it will be a sea of beautiful wild flowers.

Ponds are beautiful, whatever their size, but creating a wildlife natural looking pond can be a challenge especially if you dream of having wild flowers cascading down the banks to the water’s edge.
A tried and tested solution is one that utilises our own system developed for green roofs believe it or not.  Using bags of substrate as a sturdy, stable base for the turf to grow into may seem like a challenge to the forces of gravity when installed on a slope, but it works.
Of course the successful solution can be quite technical, but if this sounds like the answer to a problem you have been grappling with then why not give James Hewetson-Brown a call on 01256 771 222 to discuss your project.  He will be pleased to help.
Here are some photographs of a local village pond where this system has worked really well, just to give you a feel for what you can achieve.

You will remember that a few weeks back we detailed an alternative cutting regime for wild flower meadows that had flowered early and for all intents and purposes appeared to have finished by the end of June.  We thought we’d give this a go in our own courtyard meadow, especially as this year, weather conditions have resulted in early flowering in the meadow.
After cutting half the meadow in late June, we waited to see what would happen. We have to confess that whilst some of the wild flowers have clearly benefited from the additional cut, the overall effect was not prescriptive.
So in conclusion; there is no right or wrong way to proceed.  If you believe that your meadow has finished flowering and has begun to look more like hay, then why not try giving it an additional cut at the end of June to give it a boost.
However, if you really can’t decide what to do, why not take a photo and email it to us at wildflower@wildflowerturf.co.uk and we will be happy to advise you.  Alternatively, why not just call us on Tel: 01256 771222 for a chat about your wildflower meadow.
Have a look…

Last year saw the very first START Festival set up by The Princes Charities Foundation, founded by The Prince of Wales and held at various Royal venues across London throughout the Summer.
The START Initiative is all about sustainability in the United Kingdom.  The Earth Awards Exhibition, a global award dedicated to identifying viable designs for a more sustainable future, opened this week at Lancaster House and Clarence House and runs from 25th – 31st July.
This years theme is Gardening Organic and we are pleased to announce that our wildflower roof turf is being used for two of the main exhibits, The Eco House and The Container Gallery.
The turf went out towards the end of last week and was quite an exciting event, given its destination.
We hope to have photo’s to show you in a few days so watch this space.

Recently we have been trialing a special mix using annual wild flowers instead of the usual perennial species.  The mix, primarily for post 2012 Olympic Games at Greenwich Park is presently in the trial stage and is looking pretty good.
Looking at the week by week photo’s taken by Sarah Andrews, it is clear that even though there were initially spaces between the plants, these have disappeared as the plants have matured.
The root system is also something to behold, dense and fully developed, it provides a thick mat which effectively prevents invasive weeds from taking hold.
We are very pleased so far with the results of our trial which is rich in Poppies (Papaver rhoeas), Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus), and Borage (Borago officinalis) to name a few of the startlingly beautiful varieties that are attracting all sorts of wildlife including the all important bees.

Jackson’s Garden Centre host an annual in-house show in their yard in Ashford, Kent.  The designer Helen Elks-Smith’s Show Garden had the theme ‘Chill out Garden.’
Our Wildflower Turf was delivered to the site unrolled, because the turf was 2ft (0.7m) high and we didn’t want to damage the flowers. We get involved with  a lot of show gardens because we can grow the turf on as a colourful, instant meadow, which can then be delivered unrolled to the site. The Wildflower Turf proved easy to handle as it is soil-less and relatively light.

Once the turf had been laid and the remainder of the design built, the garden clearly highlighted that something as traditional and timeless as a wildflower meadow, can be successfully incorporated into a contemporary design, whether it is for a show, or part of a permanent garden feature.

The title is a customer quote – not us bragging!!
About a month ago we had a group of garden designers visit us for an open afternoon. Lisa Cox, a garden designer based in Surrey, organised the visit. She works for a diverse range of clients giving her a varied project portfolio. Lisa mentioned that she went to visit her fellow garden designer and friend, Helen, who had used our Wild Flower Turf in her own garden.  Although Helen already had a wild area in her garden, last year she decided to introduce a pond. To link the wild areas around the pond to the existing wildflower meadow, she decided to use our Wildflower Turf instead of seeding the areas, to speed up the development of the meadow.  After only 7 months it is looking amazing. Lisa commented that ‘it was as though the meadow had always been there’.

Helen chose to lay the Wildflower Turf herself and found this extremely easy, and by laying the turf in the autumn, watering was only required once or twice to…

We wanted to experiment with cutting the turf early in the season, compared to when we would normally cut it in the Autumn. We decided to trial a new mower, to find out if it could manage to cope with the maturity of the species in our Wildflower Turf at this time of the year.
The flowers and grasses were about 760mm in height and the new mower performed really well. The mower also collects the cuttings as it mows, which saves time by eliminating the need to go back afterwards removing the thatch separately. By removing the thatch we reduce the nutrient levels of the soil, to encourage wildflower  growth.
The two images on the left shows the maturity of the Wildflower Roof Turf before mowing, and the image on the right shows the turf after it has been cut.

HRH Prince of Wales is due to open a garden party with a difference to illustrate ways that we can live in greater tune with our environment.