In the summer of 2018, our front lawn finally disappeared completely in several sections. The area has near-full sun and can get very dry during hot periods. The house was built in 2005, heavy equipment compacted the sand and gravel. The landscapers only added a few inches of top soil when the lawn was installed. Whatever little organic matter was there eroded because of Japanese jumping worms turning it into dust and getting blown away. Grass just does not survive in my front yard.
Grub infestation does the rest. I do not use lawn chemicals because of several fruit trees in the front yard. Milky spore application and beetle traps alone don’t seem to make a dent into the grub population.
I remembered seeing a wildflower meadow in a neighboring town and decided to try a couple of beds, just to see how they would be doing.
So I researched this and ended up buying seeds at a local garden center. Reviews of seed products on online retailers were sketchy and scared me away. The instructions on the package said to either seed late in the fall or in the spring. Fall seedings should happen late enough for the seeds to not germinate. It was mid-October when I finally tilled two sections of the front lawn, removed the biggest lumps of grass that were left, spread my bag of seeds, and raked them in.
I just split the seeds in half and evenly spread them on both beds.
Unfortunately, November turned out to be very mild. When we finally had the first snow fall, both beds were covered with small plants. It was impossible to tell if those were weeds or germinated flower seeds, so when spring came, I decided to buy more seeds and spread them on both beds. This was in early April.
May came and so did the turkeys, frequently. I am not sure if the flower beds attracted them, and certain species of flowers. But the turkeys, or other birds, are the only explanation that I have for what happened.
What happened is that, although I used the exact same seeds in both beds, and I seeded twice, the beds looked very different in May, and still do today at the end of June as I write this. Something must have eaten the cornflower seeds from one bed.
Both beds are doing really well and we frequently get compliments from people walking by. I will expand this project in the fall and connect the two beds to one large section along the sidewalk.
I wish I knew if seeds from both packages germinated, or if the fall seeding was not successful. To make sure I will get the same results next year, I will have follow the same process. These seed packages aren’t cheap. I am looking forward to see if the flowers will come back next year, or if all beds need some reseeding.
Unfortunately, I lost all of the photographs in the original post when I cleaned up my cloud storage.
Here is a photo from June 13, 2020, i.e. year two of the flower beds:
And one from a few weeks later, June 28:
