"meadow-Looking" landscape with sowing seasonal flowers seed mix?
Kay Easton
writes
>
>Is this concept able to be borrowed to suit the Hong Kong context? First of
>all, is there an equivalent ecological habitat in Hong Kong? Of course, we
>have wild flowers in Hong Kong.
The sort of habitat that is being imitated in England is corn field or
hay field, mown once a year in late summer, or short grass kept short by
grazing sheep. Do you have anything similar? If not in Hong Kong, then
in similar climate in China?
> But i am sure there is no commercial supply
>of them.
What do you have in mind- do you know the latin names of them? Many of
our garden flowers originated in the far East, so even if you have no
commercial supply, we may do.
>
> I have an idea but i am not sure if it works or not. If i mix the seeds of
>both spring sown and autumn sown seasonal flowers, and cast-seed or
>hydroseed them, will i be able to obtain a "meadow-looking" landscape?
We obtain a meadow effect by sowing a mixture of wild flowers and grass
on to cleared ground. Sowing seeds into established grass doesn't work
because the seedlings can't compete with the grass. Planting perennial
plants, of a size able to hold their own, does work.
>Assuming the plants produce seeds by themselves and there are seed
>dispersals, theoretically, the "meadow-looking" landscape shall be able to
>sustain itself.
In theory, for the first year, and if you don't mow. But you would need
to make sure that the flowers were ones that can hold their own against
the grass - in other words, were used to growing in this habitat.
>
>From the experience of western meadow, i understand the crucial factors for
>a well meadow creation are : 1) elimination of weeds and weed seed of the
>planting area before sowing of seed mix; 2) planned cutting of the meadow.
and therein lies the snag - the cutting times of the meadow are
different for spring flowers and summer or autumn ones. There might be a
way round it by making sure that the flowers used were short in stature,
at least when they were not in flower, timing the cuts carefully, and
cutting only to 6 or 8 inches (15 - 20cm) - but this is speculation -
I'm out of my depth here.
Our corn meadow type flowers are adapted to cornfields, in other words
they go straight upwards as fast as they can and then flower - so you
wouldn't be able to cut the grass early for them ... and the spring
flowers are mostly short and wouldn't like the tall grass in
competition. But there must be a combination that works!
If it were me, I'd be looking towards perennial plants rather than
annuals - you don't have to rely on the plants being able to seed
themselves - I'd look for short growing plants ( go for the sheep-grazed
meadow rather than the cornfield look) and perhaps think about bulbs as
well. Get the natural look by going for simple flowers (not double
flowers or ones which have been bred to give masses of flowers on one
stem).
>
> If the idea i am thinking works, maybe there is an alternative to produce
>colorful landscape that is "meadow looking" and yet economic to set up.
And of course what I've suggested isn't really economical.
--
Kay Easton
Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/garden/