Wild flowers

Wild flower areas

The wild flower areas at Hoe Road and at Tangier Lane have now been cut down. In 2022 we used the same seed mix as in 2021. It is Follers Manor Annual seed mix which we purchased from John Chambers. This is a special mix of wild and cultivated annual species, originally mixed for the award-winning gardens at the stunning Follers Manor in Sussex.
The company were so impressed with some photographs that we sent them that they have used us as a case study in their advertising material. 

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The history of our wild flower areas
We successfully sowed annual wildflower seeds at the top of Tangier Lane in both 2016 and 2017.  In 2018 we tried a mix of annual and perennial seeds, with the idea that thisThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TL05-3-1024x683.jpg would be less work. Unfortunately they were mown by mistake at the end of May, which set them back.  The dry weather did not help, but they are looking very colourful at the end of August.  In 2019, as the area had been planted with perennial seeds we waited to see what would appear.  We were disappointed with the results, including massive perennials that completely dwarfed the smaller plants.  This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is TL16-2.jpgWe then made the decision in 2020 to weedkill the area and sow it with annual seeds.
This was not as successful as we had hoped due to changing weather conditions.  We did add extra seed in May and it became colourful towards the autumn but again we had problems with unattractive perennial plants.  We did weed by hand on several occassions.

In 2017 we sowed wild flower seed on the small roundabout  on Hoe Road, this time with a mix of annual and perennial seeds, this should require less maintenance than annual seed.  This was a three mix of seed. They looked spectacular and we received many compliments. The costs of the seed was sponsored by Bishop’s Waltham Society.
The roundabout was less colourful in 2018, though the dry weather may have affected this and disappointing in 2019.  In 2020 we had new sponsors and sowed an annual seed mix but again the results were disappointing

In 2018 we used two swathes on the Old Station Roundabout to experiment with wild flowers, with varying success.  We used perennial mixes here. Plug plants were donated by the Gardening Club and planted in October and 3 varieties of seeds were sown in March, using different suppliers.This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_20171112_100127917-575x1024.jpg
The first year these were extremely successful and bees and butterflies were clearly visible at all times.
In 2019 the areas flowered but not as successfully as we had hoped.
For 2020 we had intended for the areas to revert to grass but the situation in March meant that we didn’t inform the grass cutters in time and the plants grew but did look quite untidy at times.

Plans for each of these areas are currently being considered.

To view a gallery of photos for Hoe Road in 2019 PLEASE CLICK HERE

To view a gallery of photos from Tangier Lane PLEASE CLICK HERE