If you have a large amount of ground to cover in your landscape, and you would prefer to opt out of a high maintenance, expensive garden scheme, consider a wild flower garden design for your space. A field of wildflowers can be just the ticket to bring a natural beauty to your space with minimal time and attention from you. However, a wild flower garden design requires a bit more attention and planning at the beginning of the process than you might think. It is best to put forth the time and effort to establish your wildflower garden at the beginning, so that you have those blooms to enjoy, virtually maintenance free, for many years to come.

Preparing your Soil

The first step in planning your wild flower garden design is to consider the space that you will be planting in. Is there enough sunlight for the garden? Many types of wildflowers do best in full sun. Do you have irrigation available? Your flowers and plants may need additional watering at times, especially when you are trying to establish them at the beginning. Make sure that the area that you will be planting is weed free before you begin. You can clear the area of weeds by either hand weeding, solarization or spraying an herbicide on the area. Solarization requires you to cover the area with clear plastic sheeting, and leaving for a few weeks. The sun will bake the weed growth away. No matter what method of weeding you choose, you should clear away the dead plants before preparing your soil for planting.

Planting your Seeds

Once your soil is weed free, you are ready to begin your wild flower garden design. Till the soil to a depth of around three inches. If you had to remove many weeds, you might want to spray an herbicide once again to ensure any weed seeds that were exposed through the tilling process are killed as well. You can then rake over the area to prepare it for the seed spreading. By leaving the grooves from the rake in the ground, you will have natural areas for the seeds to settle. When it comes to spreading your seed, keep in mind that four pounds of seed will cover approximately an acre of ground. Since these seeds generally tend to be on the small side, you can mix them with some sand for more even spreading. Rake the area again, and keep the ground moist until the seedlings reach a height of a few inches.

A wild flower garden design is a beautiful, natural way to complete your landscape. By taking a bit of time to prepare the soil and plant your seeds properly, you will be able to enjoy your wildflower meadow for many years to come.