Appreciate the work, and the humor. “I lived with the spiders, I was damp from the forest, the beetles knew me and the tri-colored bees, I slept with the partridges immersed in the mint.” Pablo Neruda
We bought 4 acres in a rural area subdivision zoned for farming and one acre is along a property boundary. It includes a sloped, wooded streambed and opens up to a uneven and sloped terrain that is is covered in pasture grass and dead trees and wood. I love it. The deer love it. The owls and woodpeckers love it. Last summer it looked beautiful and had lots of butterflies. Even so, I want to try to make it look somewhat more presentable as we have new neighbors now who bought the house next door despite the way it looks but now are encroaching, weed whacking and otherwise trespassing on our property and trying to take it. We have cut all the vines like bittersweet, kudzu and others, kept the grape vines, and removed an old wire farm fence. They seem undeterred. Our conservancy is not interested in coming out to help or advise as this area is only about .8 acres and there are no target species they are interested in. The people next door came from a town home HOA and have called the county on us who have said nothing because we are not out of compliance. We have general restrictive covenants but no positive covenants meaning as long as we dont violate the language we are okay but I thin they think they can just order us to clear terrain that has never been disturbed at all. This woman is so lucky to have nice neighbors. She has a beautiful yard.
I put cardboard down then completely covered with leaves ( I did mine in the fall .) Don't have to do more it breaks down on its own, then plant seeds in plain soil
really great video... so much more valuable than just some photos or a write-up or whatever, excellent job - hope everybody with a boring lawn in the US copies this...it really doesn't matter if you're in a different bioregion... the northeast, mid-atlantic...some of the plants may do well, some may change...but you can still have a nice native meadow that provides beauty and habitat and is part of rehabilitating the environment
I normally buy my wild flower seeds from the Dollar Tree or Dollar General they got these packets that are like pollinator flowers and hummingbird flowers and some other stuff mixed into the packet I just throw them on the ground and let them grow
We experienced a severe drought from spring-fall of 2021 here in the Chicago area. The lawn prairie did great with zero supplemental watering! Some species stayed very short, while some were unaffected.
Yeaaaa I feel I might have a problem with my project lol. I didn't lay anything down, covered a quarter of the area with just good compost/black dirt, quarter of lawn clippings and dirt on top of that, and the other half I currently have lawn clippings on. I'll add black dirt/compost in the fall before I seed the winter sowing seeds. 🤷🤔 Ps. I aslo planted on a 15ft by 90ft sand berm to prevent a basement from flooding lol. So mowing will be a problem also 🤦😅
Cutting sod out only an inch down? That was certainly not my experience. I would say four to five inches deep to get all the roots out from years of grass and grass like growth before creating a mostly native grass garden in New Hampshire. This is a great video, thanks!
Weeds make flowers too :) but seriously looks beautiful! I let dandelions grow too. Very beneficial and medicinal. I want to turn my entire lawn into a prairie.
I cringed every time she said weed 😬. I let my backyard go to “weed”. It just took a few months over the winter to get it going. Currently 22 species of wildflowers are growing in my yard. I have pollinators everywhere. The PICTURE THIS app has helped me tremendously. I can identify now identify plants even if they aren’t blooming. Save the photos to the “my garden” section and there is a place to make notes about each plant. I LOVE dandelions. Good luck!
@@thehedgerow that app is the most fun I’ve ever had! I was that kid that was always asking what’s this flower? What’s this plant? I tried PlantSnap but it misidentified too many plants. Good luck!
I lived in Hanover Park ,Illinois I must have been lucky because the first summer I planted Wildfolwers on one side of my house ,I used seed strips I don"t know if thy still sell them but ever type in the mix bloomed that same Summer ,it was the easest growing experience I ever had I enjoyed looking at them .I really don"t like Grass it is to much work and time costing.
Good for you, here in Canada Ontario, Ottawa i had to cut all my beautiful wildflowers, that’s law, some one reported to city, I’m not cutting my weed!!! So sad,
This is absolutely beautiful. We have an acre in Champaign county, so Zone 5B rather than 5A. To your knowledge, are there resources available in my area for a transformation such as this? Our property is predominantly monoculture grass, but we are looking at permaculture and food forest options for portions and I would like to do a significant portion of it as a wildflower meadow as well.
Can I jus buzz my lawn to almost nothing then rake out the grass and spread wildflower seed an let it go ? I live in south Florida thought if I just throw down annual seeds they will just keep reseeding and I won’t ever have too reseed ? Not sure tho any advice ?
looks nice , but its not wildflower meadow, not wild enogh . im from Romania , we do do have untoched wilflower meadows. the seeds mix is not the right one , the proportion of flowers is not ok also.
An untouched meadow would soon be covered in tall grasses and eventually bushes and trees. The probably cut the meadows with scythes every year to get the hay. Plus we have different species of flowers in Europe compared to America.
probabaly packed with natural animals, I've never seen any rats in my meadow. you are just giving lame excuses. if you have rodent issues just seal up your homes holes, that's the real issues. no one cares about mice outside.
Usually, you get mice and those are controlled by predators like hawks. I live in the city and was surprised to see a bird hunting a squirrel and other small animals. Nature starts taking place. It is neat. Also, dogs love to hunt rats. Few videos are posted on YT. Owners do it as a service to the community and as entertainment for their pets.
