Guest Blog: Meadowmania
How can we increase biodiversity in our local communities – rural and urban – and create environments where wildlife can flourish and where we can reconnect with nature?
Meadowmania is a family-run business with over 30 years’ experience supplying British wildflower seed. With a passion for wildflowers and a commitment to supporting biodiversity, they’re working with landowners, landscapers, and contractors to meet this challenge.
One area Meadowmania specialises in is blending and supplying native British wildflower seed for different soil types and site conditions. Dedicated to selecting the ideal seed for each customer, they deliver bespoke, site-specific seed mixes to create a diverse array of native wildflower meadows, increasing the numbers of our native plants and providing habitats for wildlife such as the many species of moth caterpillars which rely on wildflowers for food and shelter.
They work closely with their customers to not only supply the seed but to provide on-going advice and information about the preparation of the site before sowing and the establishment and maintenance of the meadows or grasslands in the subsequent years.
Julie Power, Meadowmania’s Director finds “that sowing the seed is often the straightforward part, but customers can be unsure about what is involved in maintaining a meadow and what they should expect in the first few years of establishment. We have a wealth of resources on our website offering information and advice on a variety of meadow-related topics. We are always available to discuss our customers’ wildflower projects and to offer advice on how to maintain and encourage a species-rich site. For instance, we would suggest including yellow rattle in an autumn-sown perennial meadow mix. Yellow rattle is a hemi-parasitic annual wildflower which is commonly known as the Meadow Maker for its remarkable ability to reduce the vigour of meadow grasses thus creating space for less vigorous wildflower species to thrive. It should be sown in the autumn as the seed must be exposed to a prolonged period of cold winter weather to successfully germinate in the spring. Without management such as this, the grasses in a wildflower meadow will, over time, outcompete the wildflowers and species diversity will suffer.”
Alongside its wildflower seed mixes, Meadowmania offers a wide range of native hedging whips and wildflower plants and bulbs and can provide the complete meadow package for any landscaping project from a private garden to larger public and utility spaces.
For more information about Meadowmania’s wildflower products and services visit:
