Here is a simple step by step guide to laying my wild flower turf, this example shows my popular ‘extra floristic low flowering lawn turf’.
The above laying guide applies to all my wild flower turfs, however it is only my ‘extra floristic low flowering lawn turf’ which requires cutting a couple of weeks after laying as my other turfs (‘wild flower meadow turf’, ‘grass free wild flower turf’ and ‘shade tolerant wild flower meadow turf’) can be left to grow on uncut following laying until the end of the summer, i suggest September, when they should be cut down short and the cuttings raked clear. To keep them in good condition and prepare them for another year of flowering the following year.
My ‘extra floristic low flowering lawn turf’ should be cut on a cycle of every 3 to 6 weeks depending upon how you like it to look and how short you wish to maintain it, assuming that you wish to maintain it as a lawn rather than a floristic mini-meadow (which is an option for my ‘extra floristic low flowering lawn turf’). If you wish to maximise flowering you could cut half the lawn one time and the other half the next, so that you always have flowering present in some part of your lawn. If you wish this turf to be a short, dense, functional lawn then it is worth cutting it down tight to 1 or 2 inches every couple of weeks for the first few months during the growing season as this trains the plants to flower lower down and causes it to knit in quite tightly at ground level.
My other turfs, which are meadow style turfs (my ‘grass free wild flower turf’ could also be seen as a ‘cottage garden border’ style turf) will grow taller and when eventually cut at the end of the summer will be more gappy and less tight at the base, just like a little hay meadow would be. It will however green up and grow a few inches before the end of the year and so it will still provide green cover over the winter months until spring when it will begin flowering all over again.
I suggest you clear the fallen leaves off your turf in the winter as they block light out to the plants below, a leaf blower or rake is fine for this. If your meadow turf ever becomes too grassy, scatter some of my Yellow Rattle seed over the top of it in September once you have given it a nice tight cut and removed the cuttings.
To see my selection of wild flower turfs click here.