Wildflower meadow front yard

There are no shortcuts to creating a meadow—but if you follow James Hitchmough's guidelines you can create your own naturalistic landscape. Here's how.

Our simple guide to create your own wildflower field

We spend billions per year on lawns and gardens and a significant portion of the lawn fertilizers we apply are washed into our watersheds by overzealous watering. Fortunately for those wanting to break with the 200-year-old lawn tradition, there are many beautiful, water-wise, low-maintenance alternatives to the turf grasses we have traditionally grown in the Bay Area. For more, visit www.mercurynews.com/home-garden.

Whether you want to reduce your grass lawn or replace it, there are lots of options for alternative eco-lawns including wildflowers, clovers, and fescue grass seed mixes.

Have you considered changing your lawn into a wildflower meadow? Once established the wildflower area will be a great attraction to bees and butterflies and other pollinating insects as well as easier to maintain than a traditional lawn. For success with a wildflower meadow it is important to consider the following: When a lawn is sown it is generally at about 40 grams to the square metre. A meadow is sown at about 4 grams, which is 10% of the above rate. Meadow mixtures are a mixture of…

How to grow wildflowers in pots, borders or a meadow. These expert tips will give you months of beautiful flowers. No more mistakes!

Creating a wildflower meadow from existing lawn is a very effective way to create meadow. You may already have wildflowers present which will boost wildlife! In this article I explain how to make a wildflower meadow from lawn with either seeds or plugs.

A meadow garden is literally what is it: a garden with plants that are native for the area. Here are ideas to design one.

Converting your lawn to wildflowers will greatly support bees and pollinators, and it will be less work for you, too. Plus, flowers!