[Rocinante]

Hi growers,
I have a piece of ground that was supposed to be good topsoil when it was delivered early this Spring but has turned out to be not good with not much of anything growing apart from weeds and even though we have had very little rain here in the middle of France I dont think it is good quality,. I seem to remember reading somewhere that wildflowers and grasses dont like fertile soil so I thought i should plant them in this patch. Should I totally kill everything growing there over the winter and sow seeds in the spring after Harrowing lightly?

[yorky]

If the topsoil was originally purchased with some other purpose in mind, then why not just increase the fertility with fertiliser and manure ?
Sorry I cant help with Wild flowers and grasses, I have no experience of them.

[snowdrops]

You’re correct in that wildflowers require poor soil, the poorer the better, so I’m not sure your soil will be poor enough tbh.

[JayG]

Seem to remember Ms Dimmock creating a wildflower lawn in one of her garden makeover programmes - I think the soil needs to be poor to stop grasses out-competing the wildflowers.

Seeds are pretty cheap, so I'd just give it a go anyway, although you may have to intervene with some grass weeding if the soil isn't as poor as you think.

[Aldi Pete]

Hi, if you are happy to do so,i would kill off the area now and sow a good flower mix suitable for your climate in the spring and just lightly rake in.Any deep harrowing etc may just disturb any further dormant weed seeds into production and spoil the new wild flower bed.

[Rocinante]

Thanks, that sounds the way to go.

[Rocinante]

Thanks for all the replies.