How can I save my wildflower garden?
QI sowed a wildflower garden last year and it did really well. However, this year the weeds (creeping buttercup, rushes, and so on) have taken over. I have considered redigging it, but I planted more than 100 bulbs and some primulas last year. Should I spray it?
AWith perennials such as primulas in the ground it isn’t possible to treat perennial weeds with herbicide. These kill all plants they come into contact with. The only way to treat the area as a whole would be to dig up those plants you want to keep and spray the rest, but this would have to be done soon otherwise bulb foliage might be affected as it breaks the surface of the soil.
The alternative is more time consuming but could be the most effective and that is to hand-weed the area. If most of the wildflowers that you have sown are annuals, it won’t be long before you can remove the top growth, which will give you an idea of the extent of the perennial weeds. As they are at most only a year old they shouldn’t have embedded themselves too strongly and this is a good time of year to tackle them.
None of the weeds you have named roots too deeply so it should be possible to tease them out with a hand fork, but if you have things like dock and dandelion they might be best spot-treated with a gel herbicide dabbed on the leaves.
Wildflower gardens are glorious when they work well, but they do take a bit of work to maintain them. Even if you start with a weed-free bed, seeds blow in and vigilance is required to ensure perennial weeds don’t establish.
If you prefer to concentrate on annual wildflowers it might be better to accept that you need to spray annually to ensure that perennials don’t take hold.