Poor soils are an advantage. On rich,
fertile soils, wildflowers are rapidly smothered by strong growing
grasses, vigorous plants such as nettle, dock and thistle, and by
bramble and scrub. Where conditions are very dry, sandy, rocky or
contain a high proportion of industrial wastes, slower growing plants
and those adapted to specialised conditions are better able to survive.
Fertile soils are well suited to native cornfield annuals (Chapter 7), which require annual cultivation. On
fertile sites, it is possible to strip the topsoil, and either use it
elsewhere for nursery production, vegetable growing or other uses, or
to sell it. Except for very small areas, a machine will be required for
excavation and transport. One way to determine the soil fertility of a vegetated site is by looking at the plants growing there. The publication Flowers in the grass,
English Nature (1992) contains a key to using plants to indicate soil
fertility. Expertise in grass identification is needed to use the key,
for which the best reference is Grasses, Hubbard C E (1984). - To
reduce fertility, mowings should be removed from wildflower grasslands.
No fertilisers or organic matter should be used on the site.
- Wildflower
seed mixes should be sown thinly. This allows individual plants plenty
of space to establish, and when they seed, sufficient bare ground for
germination. The use of agricultural seed drills encourages optimum
germination, so allowing seed to be sown very thinly. Wildflower seed
is expensive, so this helps offset the cost compared with conventional
grass seed mixes.
- Carefully-timed management is needed to
allow successful establishment of the sward, and to maintain it from
year to year. The management regime must suit the site conditions, the
species sown, and the use the area will receive. The regime must be
followed every year without fail for best results.
- It is
usually easier to establish a new, flower-rich habitat, than it is to
convert an existing lawn or agricultural grassland into such a habitat.
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