Can I make a wildflower meadow?

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At our new house the garden is a bit of a conundrum. The part that is on the roadside, what you might normally consider the ‘front garden’ because it is on show to the world (especially as it has no fence or hedge or boundary marker of any sort) is actually at the back of the house, while ‘our’ front garden is at the back because the house faces away from the road. So things I might normally think of as belonging in the back garden – compost heap, vegetable plot, fruit bushes, washing line – don’t seem to ‘belong’ right on the roadside. At the same time it seems a bit of a waste to make this ‘our’ main garden since most of the time we don’t see it that much. So, what to do with it? Currently it is populated with fruit trees in various states of health, and grass (as in the picture), with a few bulbs around the bases of the trees. It is also partly shaded by the house. Of course we could just leave it like this, but neither of us is all that keen on spending all our weekends mowing grass! After mulling it over for quite a while I have decided I will try to create my own wildflower meadow. I can’t go down the ‘annual cornfield wildflower’ route with poppies, cornflowers etc. as that would require ploughing (or the equivalent) and re-sowing every year, as well as plenty of sunshine, so I’m going to try a more permanent type of planting for sun and shade. I’ve made a bit of a start, mostly by transplanting plants I already had (in the garden, not dug from the wild I hasten to add). So far I’ve managed primroses – there were already a few around the edges and I’ve dug up a load from our old garden where they were spreading into the lawn and dotted them about among the grass in the shady areas. Originally these plants came from another garden which I used to tend, where they spread so much they were quite a nuisance! Similarly white violets – in our house before last a few of these grew in cracks along the edge of the path and I encouraged them to spread into the grass and in no time there were loads. I brought some with me to our last house and there they have filled their allocated space beside the drive and are now restricted by the concrete so I’ve taken quite a few of those and dotted them about as well. Both are pretty tough plants so I hope they can repeat their previous successful colonisation with a bit of encouragement! Next I had two pots of snakes-head fritillaries, which I bought at ‘fritillary Sunday’ last spring (see http://www.mylot.com/post/2918212/nature-post-of-the-day-17-4-16-snakes-head-fritillary). I couldn’t decide where to plant them so I never got around to it, and then we moved house, and now the pots have come along with us and are just starting to sprout once again, so they have gone in a sunny spot. Last but definitely not least, as I passed one of my favourite shops (the sort that sells everything you could possibly need!) yesterday I noticed they had a few plants for sale outside and among them there was a tray of native cowslips, so I bought the lot (9 plants) and have planted those in the sunny places. So now we’ll see how all those settle in; I hope they make themselves at home and spread around! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2017.