Combining Grass Seed & Wildflower Seed for an Animal-friendly Garden

Combining Grass Seed & Wildflower Seed for an Animal-friendly Garden

Some avid gardeners will ask lawn lovers – why don’t you just grow wildflowers instead of having a lawn?

The truth is a combination of sowing both grass seed and wildflower seeds in your garden can have massive benefits on both family life and pets or animals who use the space.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of both lawns and wildflowers and how they can work really well together to make a superb child and pet friendly gardens.

Let’s start with grass seed.

Benefits of sowing Grass Seed

Sowing grass seed is the cheapest option for creating your own lawn and just like wildflowers, it comes with multiple benefits.

• Makes a good relaxation area

A lawn can offer a fantastic relaxation area for the whole family to enjoy. Especially if it’s surrounded by wildflowers. It’s a safe, practical place where the whole family can enjoy a picnic or even just a spot of sun-bathing.

• Perfect for playing sport

If your family are into activities and sport. I.e. they don’t sit still for long, then having a designated area for them to play football or even racket games can be a huge advantage. Crisp lawns offer a fantastic area to do this.

• Pets and kids can run around freely

Maybe your kids like to play with the dog or cat outside. Rolling around in the lawn can be a great way to do this. It can also create the perfect spot for positioning a climbing frame or a trampoline if that’s your (or your kids) preference too.

• Multiple Eco benefits

Lawns are sometimes seen as controversial. However, they have many eco benefits to the environment. For example, lawns and dandelions often grow together, meaning pollinators can also use the area.

A lawn will give off oxygen into the air, so it’s way better than laying slabs or even putting down the dreaded Astroturf.

• Lawns don’t have to be just grass

You don’t have to just use grass seed mixes, you could use a clover/grass seed mix. Clover can help grass to grow by releasing naturally-produced nitrogen into the soil. We’ve already mentioned dandelions and if you leave them in the lawn to grow naturally, you’re definitely going to attract pollinators into your garden.

Finally, moss is also a creeper into dense wet soil. Some people love it some people don’t. If you want to let the moss take over that’s perfectly fine too as moss is also perfectly safe for animals to enjoy.

Best grass seed for creating a lawn

There are many grass seed mixes available and you’ll want to buy the best grass seed mix for your garden. This will depend on how you use the garden and how your garden is situated. So, do a little research about which type of grass seed is the best for you.

For example, if you’re using it as a playing field, then you’ll want to use a hard-wearing mix. Whereas if your garden is in the shade, then you’ll need a mix that is suitable for shade. Usually containing Strong Red Fescues and Chewings Fescues with a mix of Rye for hard wearing characteristics.

Alternatively, if you want your lawn to be mown close, then a 100% fescue mix is likely to be needed because it’s better in drought when mowed closely.

All grass seed and organic lawn feed is 100% pet friendly so you don’t have to worry about your little ones t all when sowing

Benefits of sowing Wildflower Seeds

Sowing wildflower seed is a great option for creating a colourful, wildlife attracting meadow in your garden. If you want it to be rustic round the edges, then wildflower borders might just be the perfect choice for you.

Here are a few reasons why.

• Easy to manage

While some wildflowers can take a bit of time to reach their full flowering potential, they take minimal care to do so. You can essentially leave them to grow and they will hold their own for the long term in many different soil types.

• Wildflowers work great as a natural border to grass

If you live in a cottage or even just want your garden to look a bit more meadow-like, then wildflowers that edge directly onto the lawn can be a great option. You would simply just mow up to where you want the lawn to finish and the meadow to start.

• Great for pollinators

Wildflowers cater for many different pollinators and in particular bees, butterflies, and even moths. This helps their species survive the challenging eco-system and in turn preserves the ever-important food chain.

• They’re a source of food and nesting material for birds

Any stalks or debris that break off the flowers can be used by birds for nesting material. What’s more, some of the edible flowers can provide an important source of food for wild birds.

• Wildflowers add beautiful colour

If all the above isn’t enough to make you want a wildflower meadow in your garden, the other benefit is that they look fantastic when they are in their flowering period. Adding a beautiful splash of colour to any garden.

• They can be used on top of grass

If you already have a large patch of grass, then the good news is that you could use some of that space to overseed with wildflower. The benefits being that the lawn will act as a barrier in the soil so the wildflower seeds can germinate and out-compete other weeds.

Best wildflower seeds to choose

It’s true to say that many flowers and plants love sun. But there are shade lovers too.

While there are many shade loving species out there, most prefer dappled shade so it’s a good idea to find a place in the garden that receives a little bit of sun either in the morning or afternoon.

However, if you’re planting your seeds in shaded areas, do a little research first. One option is to take a walk in the woods to see which type are working well in shade, sun or dappled shade.

You can take a picture with your phone, then use Google Lens to identify the name based on their flowering buds.

Some popular wildflower species that work great in the shade are Sweet Woodruff, Red Campion and foxgloves.

Another thing to note is that some plants can be dangerous for dogs. So, if you want the best of both worlds, try to sow ‘grazing-safe’ seeds.

Guest Article.