For the last week or so, the most notable visitors to the bird table (yes, I’m old) have been starlings. Growing up they were regarded as really very common birds, of no real interest to anyone, but they’re now on a red list having seen an 80% fall in numbers.

At first glance, they were an odd crowd indeed with the dark speckled adults mingling with dull brown fledglings that seemed to have outgrown their parents. It looked for all the world as if two different species had suddenly decided to flock together.

Starlings lay eggs, hatch and fledge their young all at much of the same time presumably to maximise their chances in the face of predators. An entire flock of starling parents on the look out for cats (or whatever) will be more vigilant.

It makes for a noisy garden. They can only really access the open mesh feeder so the smaller tits still have a decent food supply, once the mob of starlings has flown off but at the moment I’m just enjoying them interact.

There are a number of collective nouns for a group of starlings, starting with a murmuration of starlings for those wonderful mass flights that seem more like abstract art in the skies. From the sounds in my garden, this lot could definitely qualify as a chatter of starlings bt my favourite, based on the almost continuous squabbling from the fledglings is a vulgarity of starling.

That feels just about right.

So the bulbs have arrived, ordered maybe six to nine months ago, there is absolutely no chance of me remembering what I intended to do with them all.

There are three basic tulip beds:

cold colours (pink, purple, white)

30xTulip Queen of Night 11/12 cm to be split 20:10 between the two main tulip beds, 20xTulip Angel’s Wish elegant whites, 20xTulip Yosemite: pink late bloomers

hot colours (red, orange, yellow)

10xTulip Ballerina 10/11 cm: and elegant orange fluted tulip, 10xTulip Ronaldo 11/12 cm: dark early-ish, 10xTulip Princess Irene: orange red parrot tulip

And then there’s the rest of them.

wild tulips that I usually stick under hedges and into those places difficult to plant including Tulip Bakeri Lilac Wonder, Tulip Clusiana Peppermint Stick which have ended up planted into the gravel on the garage roof

Bulbs for the meadow this year include:

Triteleia Corrina (Brodiaea) Why 50? I can vaguely remember thinking that they’d look good lining the path cut through the meadow along with Allium Cowanii x50 of these smallish alliums for the meadow, to line the path.

Camassia Cusickii x10 for the meadow, to be threaded through the grass in threes and Narcissus Barenwyn 50 very old fashioned, and rather late season daffodils.

Dutch Crocus Jeanne D’ Arc x25 White & lovely, Crocus Etruscus Zwanenburg x25 Bright & purple

But then maybe instead of the meadow, some of the smaller bulbs should make there way to the gravel

Narcissus Tete a Tete Again 50, tiny narcissus

Iris Reticulata Harmony Really 50? Could I not think up a smaller number?

But then there are the alliums that I haven’t really a plan for, other than remembering how lovely they looked in amongst the roses.

Allium White Giant (Stipitatum) just three but maybe these can grow in amongst the meadow rather than roses. Allium Giganteum, again just three so maybe to mix with the white giants. I have three wire cloches that I use to plant into the grass and protect from the squirrels through the Winter, so maybe two alliums in each basket? Possibly with a ring of crocus around the outer edge, maybe even a daffodil or three.

Sitting at the back of the garden, half hidden in the meadow for my first cup of coffee of the day and along comes Mr Fox. Settling himself down into the long grass, making his nest for the morning. All is well with the world.

And then along comes a cat, spooking both of us and the day resumes.

In many ways this is the best of times for my garden. The wisteria must be around fifty years old, planted long before we moved here, and every year puts on an incredible display not just of flowers but the scent. In its third year, the thug clematis Montana is also in full flower, climbing the old depleted rose and just crossing the supports and heading into the wisteria. At some stage soon I’ll have to decide whether or not to try and keep it cut hard back or let it ramble forever.

The clematis has been such a joy, that another has been added to climb the other very elderly, very depleted rose on the next upright post. Those clematis planted in the shady wooded section a year or so ago are still alive, but as you’d expect are a lot more challenged by conditions. Still in a dark dry spot, ‘not dead yet’ can be seen as something of a success. Given my time again, I would not have planted the euphorbia, but put in some Japanese anemones earlier. They run rampant but at least won’t give me latex burns as I pull them up.

The late tulips are looking beautiful with their pink/white/purple shades really standing out against the green. After all of the rain, there’s an awful lot of green. Clearly I should be weeding more or at least some. If nothing else maybe I should make the effort to move the campion and cornflowers from the rose beds to the meadow. Next month the rock roses planted last year should start to flower.

It’s not a bad time to consider what might be good for next year in terms of bulbs ie what has worked and what has not so far.

Add more to naturalise in the meadow – bluebells, dutch crocus, late narcissus (barenwyn) camassia quamash, tulip bakeri

Add to the shade garden and under the garden hedges – small narcissus (tete a tete), bluebells or crocus. Hopefully some foxgloves will start to appear as well.

For plants still to flower, maybe some more alliums would be a good thing tall and interesting in amongst the later taller grass. I do wonder whether eremus, or knipofia would work in a Summer meadow. It’s all rather green at the moment and to be honest though I can see something is growing by its foliage, I’m not really sure what to expect. If I’m lucky, a swathe of ox-eye daisies is about to arrive but they could be anything. I live in hope.

Certainly the early pink roses are just about to flower and light up the garden. The white roses arrive almost an entire month later but do have the benefit of being more disease resistant. If I was a good gardener, no doubt I’d spray for blackspot regularly, but of course I forget. Every time I look at them I’m reminded of my late neighbour who loved her roses so much and was so hugely encouraging when we moved into the house.

The garden has a succession of show-stopping plants, supported ideally by other less showy but more useful ones. Having planted in a number of rejected foxgloves, self-seeded into a friend’s vegetable plot, I’m hoping they’ll settle in and supplement my roses next month. Sadly the snails seem to be eating them faster than they can grow. I know that the RHS has taken snails off the pest list, but really…

Someone must have spent quite a reasonable time and effort getting rid of well-known thugs such as Mexican fleabane, woodruff, hardy geraniums, forget-knots etc since I had to ask friends for cuttings. No doubt I’ll spend the last ten years of my life here trying to get rid of them so the next owner can start the cycle all over again.

The roses always will remind of my neighbour, the fleabane from the friend who taught my girls at Sunday school, the London Pride from my mother-in-law, the foxgloves from one of my best friends. Perhaps the sweetest part of gardening is the collection of plants from friends family and neighbours, the stories and memories they bring to mind.

Trying to create a wild meadow garden is not a quick project, certainly not as simple as letting your lawn run wild. The benefit to wildlife, especially butterflies is clear from the very first year, but there is still a sad lack of flowers in amongst the grass. I’m not aiming at flowers everywhere, but the nature of wildflowers seems to run to smaller less showy plants.

This is most likely always going to be a Spring/Early Summer garden with a once a year cut in Autumn so it just starts to shine in April. The frustration mainly comes from having wildflowers settle into the garden everywhere but the meadow. Campion loves living under my roses. Violets love the gravel path. Heck, everything loves the damn gravel!

Having said that, a few years in and we’re starting to see some progress, partly thanks to deliberate planting of bulbs and partly due to nature doing its thing.

Last Autumn we deliberately planted three dense splurges of bulbs under cloches as well as spreading out across the wider lawn. As a result, we have three mats of crocus, small tulips, bulb hyacinth and narcissus that were protected (somewhat) from the squirrels that can now start to clump up and colonise. It feels as though planting dense clumps will be more successful in terms of naturalising the grass since I’m loathe to clear the grass with weedkiller for planting and the root mass is so dense. Whilst most of the daffodils in flower beds have gone over, the barenwyn variety planted last year and supposedly closer to the wild version, is only now appearing in the meadow, a slightly darker and drier part of the garden.

Here are some of the wild flowers that can be spotted at the moment …

1. Primrose (Primula Vulgaris)

These are almost impossible to avoid walking along my gravel path, and yet are very shy in our meadow lawn. They can be found, but the dense roots of the grass make it a difficult environment for flowers to break through and the primroses are still struggling. In a real meadow, the animals grazing would have broken up the grass, creating bare spots and breaking through the roots of the sod to make life easier for wildflowers. Still, their pale yellow flowers really stand out against the green so the few we have are lovely. Primroses can appear as early as December all the way through until May, so April is the peak time to see them looking their flashy best.

2. Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata)

A culinary favourite due to its sweet taste, this small edible purple flower is often used as decoration on cakes or in salads. Sadly, it’s wonderful taste have caused it’s decline in the UK after being over-picked by foragers. In addition, this wild flower’s delicate scent has led it to being a common ingredient of perfumes, dating back to the Greek and Roman times. In the wild they are mainly found on banks or in meadows, but a keen eye is needed as they grow very low to the ground.

In my garden, yet again they grow very easily in the gravel path (tricky to get rid of to be honest) but spotting them in the meadow lawn is trickier.

3. Cow Parsley (Anthriscus Sylvestris)

These tall, exuberant wild flowers are everywhere in the UK, and a plant that I don’t really want to see too much of – I’m taking these out of the meadow before they take over. The wide brimmed white clusters of blooms sit atop a long vibrant green stem and are super common at roadsides or garden edges. A distant relative of the carrot, this plant provides food for all kinds of British wildlife. Note: they taste nothing like carrots.

4. Bluebells (Hyacinthoids Non-Scripta)

If you haven’t ever seen a bluebell wood in all it’s glory, now is the time to get out there and discover one. With around 50% of the worlds bluebells being found in the UK, we are privileged to be able to see this natural spectacle every year between mid-April and the end of May. The sweet smelling bell-shaped blooms carpet the ground of ancient woodland, making it easy to see why there are so many folklore tales surrounding these wild flowers. Easy to spot due to the bright blue colour, bluebells are often inundated with hungry bees, hoverflies and butterflies which enjoy feasting on the nectar.

I planted bulbs of these wild flowers into the meadow quite deliberately a year or two ago and am waiting for them to clump up and naturalise. If you plan to plant bluebells, make sure you get the UK version rather than Spanish which will overtake the indigenous version. At the moment they’re green shoots scattered through the grass about to flower.

Find a bluebell wood near you by using this fab guide by the Woodland Trust; https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/things-to-do/woods-through-the-seasons/spring/best-bluebell-woods/Bluebell carpet, NorfolkBluebell, also known as cuckoo’s boots

5. Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria Hollostea) 

A delicate and easily overlooked wild flower, this small white bloom provides nectar for not only bees and butterflies, but also moths which rely on this essential food source. They open in April and the flowers turn to seed pods by June, which pop loudly and are a signal of summer – earning it the nickname ‘poppers’. Most commonly found in woodlands and although widespread, this small flower will require a little hunting down.

In the meadow, it’s one of the plants growing underneath the yew hedge.

Greater Stitchwort – also known as the ‘Star-of-Bethlehem’

6. Wild garlic, Ramsons (Allium Ursinum)

This is currently taking over the woodland part of my garden, a surprise since it’s very shady and very dry. This year, I plan to transfer some of the plants to the meadow to see whether they like the environment.

Wild ramsons produce a tall, straight stalk with a cluster of fluffy white flowers on the top. An almost exotic looking plant with wide green leaves, it is more well known as ‘wild garlic’ and is one of the most popular foods for foragers to pick. When I was growing up, they grew alongside blue bells in the local woods so I’m hopeful that they’ll enjoy the meadow as much as the bluebells seem to enjoy it.

The whole plant from flower to root can be eaten, but if you are simply looking to observe this plant, chances are you’ll smell the garlic wafting through the woods before you see it. Much like bluebells, ramsons can overtake an entire woodland floor.

Wild Garlic, also known as Bear Leek

7. Ground Ivy (Glechoma Hederacea) 

Growing barely a few centimetres above the ground, and producing only a few tiny lilac blooms that somehow blend into the green of grass, this is a tough wild flower to find. It’s actually a part of the dead nettle family (more on those shortly) but it’s habit of spreading widely has led it to being called ‘ivy’. Interestingly, despite its small stature, this plant kicks out a strong scent, and before hops were discovered it was frequently used in the beer brewing process.

8. Summer Snowflake (Leucojum Aestivum)

Not be confused with the snowdrops which bloom between January and March, these slightly larger, taller  white wild flowers have very rounded bell-shaped blooms with small green dots on the tip of each petal. Does it compare in beauty to the more well know snowdrop? Well, that’s personal opinion.. Spot them on banks and in woodlands, often close to water sources.

I’ve planted some bulbs in a clump in the meadow and also in the woodland to try and see which environment works best for them. Hopefully at least one colony will succeed

9. Forget-me-not (Myosotis)

The tiny bright blue flowers of forget-me-not have to be one of the most loved blooms of all. Although they were originally a wild flower, these minuscule blue beauties are now more commonly found sprawling in gardens, giving rise to arguments as to whether they are indeed still a wild flower or not. They are currently thriving in my flower beds and making a brave attempt to break into the meadow.

10. Common Chickweed (Stellaria Media)

Another minuscule flower that will require a little patience to find, but is nonetheless fairly widespread throughout the UK. It’s mostly thought of as a weed, but can actually be eaten in salads and is a valuable source of nectar for tiny insect species. It’s actually pretty useful in the meadow at that point where the grass starts to thin towards the yew hedge – tough as old boots.

Common Chickweed – does actually get fed to chickens.

11. Garlic Mustard (Alliaria Petiolata)

Occasionally mistaken for a stinging nettle, this tall and impressive plant is crowned with white cross shaped flowers and gives off a faint whiff of garlic. As with many wild flowers, it is popular for use in cooking, particularly salads. It often grows in hedgerows and along roadsides, making it easy to discover.

It’s one of the plants I intend to take out – too much green and not enough flower for something of a bully plant.

Garlic Mustard – not a stinging nettle!

12. Common Comfrey (Symphytum Officinale)

This is another flower which is often considered to be a weed, yet has some incredible properties and is one of the best early food sources for bees particularly. Its deep roots drag nutrients to the surface of the soil for other plants to utilise and it makes good nitrogen rich compost.

A friend gave me some roots of this and it’s now taking over the woodland plot. The droopy bell shaped flower heads range in colour from white and cream to pinks and purples, looking strangely almost wilted. It naturally repels slugs and once it’s flowers I can take it right back to the soil and know it will come back next year – a lovely thug.

Comfrey in pinkComfrey in white

13. Bulbous Buttercup (Ranunculus Bulbosus) 

Do you like butter – hold one of these flowers under your chin. If the golden yellow shines off your skin, then you do.

It’s found in most gardens, on road sides and along almost all footpaths and in my garden scatters itself through the grass.

14. White or Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium Album?)

THEY DO NOT STING! In fact, the dead nettle can make a tasty addition to salads. It’s super common and easy to find – often found close to real stinging nettles so take care if you are foraging. It’s easy to overlook these blooms as being ‘boring’ as they are everywhere, but close up the petals are almost orchid-like. It’s currently growing in amongst the chickweed and feeding early butterflies and bees.

White Dead Nettle Purple Dead Nettle

15. Cowslip (Primula Veris)

A fabulous little wild flower which has many uses, from helping cure coughs, to providing citrus flavour in food and flavouring wine. Tall and bright yellow, favouring meadows and open woodland, I’m still trying to find this in my meadow after last year planting

Cowslip, also known as Fairy Cups.

16. Lesser Celandine (Ficaria Verna)

This bright yellow member of the buttercup family starts blooming as early as December, and finishes in Apri. It’s a cheerful flower, supposedly found in damp woodlands or sprawling on shady bank sides yet absolutely happy in the driest spots of my meadow maybe because of the lack of competition from grass. With a high vitamin C content, this plant has been used for medicinal purposes in the past, and for insects it is a precious food source.

Lesser Celandine – also known as Pilewort (note in the picture a bulbous buttercup on the bottom left showing the difference in petal shape)

17. Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale)

Prized for its flavour and long list of health benefits, it is regularly used in making salads, tea and even wine. It’s classed as a weed, and gardeners countrywide hate them with a passion. However, for the pollinators of springtime, they are essential food banks and of course children love blowing the fluffy seed heads known as ‘clocks’ to tell the time.

Bizarrely I can hardly find any dandelions in my meadow lawn.

Dandelion – has hundreds of uses

18. Common Daisy (Bellis Perennis) 

Unmistakable and a children’s favourite – who hasn’t made a daisy chain?! Although this tiny, hardy flower is seen throughout the year – they’re just beginning to pop up through the grass

The Common Daisy – a childhood fave

19. Wood Anemone (Anemone Nemorosa)

A sure sign that the woodland you are walking through is ancient, this flower has signalled the arrival of spring for centuries. This delicate bloom is names after Anemos, the Greek god of wind, hence their other name; Wind Flowers. The leaves smell slightly musky.

Having planted some of these around both the meadow and the wood plot, the only ones I can find are popping up in nearby flower beds (thanks to the squirrel relocation service)

Wood Anemone – also known as ‘Wind Flowers’

20. Snake’s Head Fritillary (Fritillaria Meleagris) 

Immediately identifiable and one of the most unusual wild flower species in this list, this beautiful bloom is now classed as vulnerable in the UK. So called because of the snake-like pattern on it’s petals, it has been the subject of a huge conservation effort across the country.

I deliberately planted loads of these in the meadow, including the white version to make them easier to spot. As a result they’re looking beautiful in amongst the grass and encourage people to look closer and then spot some of the smaller flowers.

Frustrating as always, the gravel path is currently chock-a-block with these.

Snake’s Head Fritillary – now classed as a vulnerable species in the UK

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As always with any activity in the great outdoors, please take care not to trample or upset the species growing nearby. Wild flowers are particularly delicate and all too often in the meadow, the prettiest flowers are the ones my husband has just squashed flat with his shoes.

Come the apocalypse, it seems clear that the British will ignore the entire event as much as possible and focus on their gardening or DIY. Alongside complaints about the weather will be furtive requests for the location or mobile number of hairdressers willing to break curfews.

Everyone needs a gardening project in the face of disaster and potential WW3 so having decided to turn the smallish lawn at the top of my garden into a meadow, I started looking around for some advice. The best of the books on the topic that I’ve managed to find is by Christopher Lloyd, Meadows.

It works for a number of reasons.

It’s not didactic, especially from an environmental or organic view. He is interested in what works in a very practical sense when talking about how one might clear the land to sow seed if required, how often to cut the meadow and when etc. It also has a lovely long list and description of plants that he’s tried in his meadows across a variety of circumstances (wet/dry, aspect etc)

It is a surprisingly beautiful and well written book, with photos that give a real feel for what can be achieved through the year in the UK albeit on a much grander scale than my small plot. He talks about his planting of real life meadows at Dixter, the successes and the failures. There are Spring pictures of meadows full of crocus, or fritelaria or daffodils followed by pictures of cammasia squamish that really stood out.

The book clears away a lot of confusion about what it means to create a meadow, as opposed to a cornfield or indeed a prairie styled garden. Most people when thinking of a wildflower garden will be thinking of fields full of poppies and cornflowers, not really thinking through the conditions that those plants need ie annual plants, fertilised soil, no grass or sod of any kind to compete.

To create a field of poppies you would need to clear the lawn entirely, improve fertility and sow seed, year after year. To be honest, it sounds like far too much work for a couple of weeks of glory. I’d probably have more joy seeding poppies into my grave than into my lawn.

A prairie garden seems more possible, not least because many prairie plants we’ve adopted in this country have become mainstays of the perennial border. Rudbeckias, coneflowers, sedums etc all have a place in my garden already. But ultimately a ‘proper’ prairie garden or border would have clumps of plants interspersed with great big clumps of decorative grasses and that’s not quite what I want.

A meadow is a plot with permanent continuous grass or sod into which plants grow, most obviously things like cowslips, plants which cope well with relatively low fertility, that can compete with our tough British grass mats. But whilst I can clearly imagine a Spring meadow looking beautiful, I struggle to see the same plot attractive in late Summer to Autumn without at least a few of the prairie plants dotted though the grass.

The book’s advice is clear: plant proper sized plants rather than seed (unless you want to clear the sod manually or by nuking it with weed killer for the first year) so I’ve planted in some gaura and knautia; some Veronica too. The bulbs planted last Autumn have been a bit hit and miss thanks to the squirrels, though I can see a few growing in the neighbours plot. As result I’ve ordered some more crocus and daffodils, some triteleia too but will look to buy some heavy wire cloches to protect them better this year.

As always after the start of each gardening project comes the realisation that nothing happens quickly. Christopher Lloyd’s parents bought Dixter and started gardening there in 1910. I have maybe ten to twenty years left to work actively and see my garden develop – it might just about be presentable by the time I pop my clogs and a new family arrive to rip it all out!

We left the lawn to grow through the Summer and as a result (it feels) have seen a lot more wildlife. Of course what that means is a lot more bugs, but as long as it includes butterflies then I’m going to count it as a great success.

What we didn’t see was a great deal of wild flowers. There was a lot of clover, some orange hawkweed and a fair set of dandelions, but not much else. The grass grew to around calf height, so more rough around the edges than out of control wasteland. And two ants nests set up home.

We invested in hand grass shears which meant cutting it in late September was practical if not a pleasure. Thank goodness it’s a relatively small patch. The path through to the garden seat made it look more deliberate rather than accidental, which helped.

But I want to see flowers, especially Summer flowers and have decided nature just isn’t quick enough.

I’ve ordered some wildflower plug plants to be delivered next week, leaucanthemuma (basically large daisies) and foxgloves. The latter will be added mostly to the shade garden but I’ll plant a few in the meadow to see if they take.

But I’ve also ordered some bulbs that could be slipped into the grass, such as white anemone blanda (maybe some blue) along with some Eglihs bluebells. Both should flower in late March/early April.

I have crocus bulbs but was thinking to focus them in the front lawn again – last year the lawn was cut too early and their flowering was a bit wreaked.

The blue camassia (quamash) and leichtlinii (caerula) flower in late May/June. The alliums cowanii, roseum and sparaeocephalon, will flower from May through to July. Where the triteleia should pick up (June/July). I’m hoping that these will all be relatively at home within the grass and rather delicate looking.

Should I also chuck in some of the orange crocosimia for a contrast? They grow in the garden like weeds so maybe I should try a couple and see how they spread.

The foxgloves should spike in around June/August and the leucanthemum (ox eye daisies) should flower May through to September if they like the spot.

The grass will be cut back every September so there doesn’t seem much point in planting Autumn flowering plants or bulbs.

That leaves hundreds of tulips to be planted in the white rose border, under the wisteria and on top of the flat roof in the gravel. It’s a job my partner hates doing this time of year bt persists with because Spring is so lovely.