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ExteriorsDesign DilemmaGardens
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Wildflowers - scruffy or charming?

Kara L
4 years ago

These have popped up on the entrance to my house & I am soooo undecided if to keep them or weed em?!

Featured Answer
  • Kara L
    Original Author
    4 years ago
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><md>Funny how it happened as I kept alyssums in the tin you can see on the step on the left, which now has mint in. Once they died down, I cropped them and planted mint. I didn’t realise they had spread to what little soiled areas we have on the front patio. I’m quite enamoured with them but some days, I do think they look a bit naff! Thank you everyone for your input, I think I will keep them, but tidy them a little too. It’s important to me to keep what I can for the bees, as we have a paved patio at the back too and I hate to think I’m not doing anything for the bees!

    Comments (7)

    • Ribena Drinker
      4 years ago

      When you say "wildflowers" what are they exactly?

    • Kara L
      Original Author
      4 years ago

      I can only formally recognise the white alyssums - but there are some dandelions , buttercups & just green leaves also.. Not entirely sure!

    • Daisy England
      4 years ago

      I love to see wild flowers. Leave them in.

      In fact our local council plants wild flower seeds down the centre of the dual carriageway every year and when they flower it looks amazing.

    • Sonia
      4 years ago
      last modified: 4 years ago

      There’s a popular saying “A weed is just a flower in the wrong place”. I’m torn over “weeds”, some are wonderful for wildlife and others are very invasive and can overtake a border. If weeds are cluttering up an area then I pull them out, but if I like them then they stay. A wildflower meadow provides habitat for an amazing range of wildlife, but I’m not convinced letting weeds grow in odd places contributes much. Best way to push out weeds is to keep your borders full leaving no bare patches for weeds to invade. Plant up that border with, say, hardy Geraniums fully and you’ll have less weeds. Geranium Rosanne is a great filler.



    • Sonia
      4 years ago

      Forgot to say hardy Geraniums are loved by bees and pollinators too!

    • rachelmidlands
      4 years ago

      The alyssum is rather nice, i like seeing the little puffs of white flowers. They’ll die down in winter but will self seed ready for next year. Anything else I’d get rid, especially the dandelion and buttercup as these root really deep are a pain to remove. I always nip the heads off dandelions after they’ve flowered so they don’t seed everywhere. Either just pull them out, or use a weed killer like round up gel so you can target individual plants. Horsetail, willow herb and ash tree seedlings are (amongst others) problematic weeds which should be removed before they become a menace. Having said all this I like a lot of wild plants. Where my mum lives she has a great many plants that grow between the stone garden walls and the lane which self seed every year. Aquilegias, welsh poppy, astrantias, honesty, sweet rocket, wild primroses, violets...all escapees from the garden:) It’s become a sort local attraction. Passers by (and myself) admire it and might take a few seed heads home. Even the council won’t sweep the lane till all the flowers have finished...does mean that by poor dad is on dandelion duty;).

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