[SeanOChuinn]

Hello all,

We are about the start work on a new home build and the site is a 3.9 acres site. We had hoped to just use a certain percentage for house use i.e. yard, lawn, house foot print and drive way and then plant the rest of the site with some trees and more especially natural flower meadows. My question then: will we need to prepare the ground, which is already a grass meadow, for seeding the meadow mix? I assume we cannot just drop seeds on top of the already growing grass that exists and expect it to grow? We're trying to save on costs and not having to plough, rotavate and then sow would save us a little bit.

Thanks all.

[Greengage]

If you have a grass meadow what do you want to do.
1. Do not add fertiliser.
2. if you plough leave alone there will already be a seed bank there so see what grows.
3. Check out http://www.wildflowers.ie/
give him a call he is very helpful.

[medieval knievel]

as per Greengage's suggestion as to not fertilise, wildflower meadows are usually low in soil fertility; if they're too fertile, grass will out-compete the flowers and take over. it's not uncommon to scrape the top layer of soil off before seeding with flowers; sounds to me like you've plenty of space to put the soil if you do this, albeit not the budget.