Now is the time to prepare your soil to plant wildflowers. In Virginia, October and November are the most favorable months for planting wildflowers. Plant at this time and you will have larger plants with many more flowers than if you planted them next spring.
Here are a few basic pointers for preparing a wildflower bed:
- Select an area that drains well, but doesn’t have overly rich soil.
- If the soil is very poor, do amend, but don’t fertilize.
- Remove any existing vegetation.
- Rake the soil only to a depth of about an inch.
- Mix one part wildflower seeds with four parts sand. Broadcast the seeds over the new bed, first one way, then the other (i.e., north-south, then east-west).
- Walk over the bed to press the seed into the soil, but do not cover the seeds more than 1/16″.
- Water lightly and frequently if you don’t get adequate rain through the autumn.
In most cases, the less fuss you make over wildflowers, the better they’ll grow. Think about where you usually see them in springtime: highway medians, cracks in the sidewalk, etc.
In fact, the worst thing you can do to your wildflowers is overwater and/or fertilize. While a sprinkling of compost is certainly welcome to any plant, wildflowers are tough and they like to prove it…and come springtime, with a little preparation, they’ll do just that.