Grow your own meadow

By making a meadow, even on a tiny scale, you’ll be providing a banquet for pollinators that’ll help them thrive, explains meadow expert and Plantlife botanist Dr Trevor Dines

Wildflower meadows are stunning. Nothing else we create packs quite such a floral punch or brings so many benefits for wildlife. But what actually is a meadow?

To a farmer’s son like me, a genuine meadow will always be an expanse of grassland with a breathtaking abundance of native wildflowers. The sheer joy of these meadows is the bright palette of wildflowers softened by the muted tones of the grasses.

Today, though, the term ‘meadow’ has broadened in horticulture to include any dense mixed planting of annual flowers, often from various parts of the world. They are effectively meadows without the grass, and without the ‘wild’. These annual or ‘pictorial’ meadows produce concentrated swathes of flowers in a kaleidoscope of hues.

It’s the concentration of flowers in a meadow that’s important. Since the 1930s, over 97 per cent of our wildflower meadows have been destroyed – that’s 7.5 million acres gone. Now, when you consider that a single acre of meadow can be home to 2.3 million individual flowers at the height of summer, producing enough nectar to feed 83,000 bees per day, you can begin to understand why our wild pollinators are in such trouble.

Flower power

Diversity of flowers is crucial too, as different sizes and shapes suit different pollinators – long- and short-tongued bees, butterflies and moths with coiled tongues, hoverflies with small tubular mouthparts, and beetles with biting jaws. The greater the diversity of flowers, and the longer the flowering season, the more of these pollinators have the chance to feed.

Pollinators collect two important foods from flowers. Nectar, which is almost pure sugar, is used to fuel daily activities and, in the case of honeybees, is stored as honey to help survive the winter. By contrast, pollen is a source of protein and is particularly important for insects rearing young. Different flowers produce varying quantities of nectar and pollen. Some, such as dandelions and ox-eye daisies, offer large amounts of both. Others, including red clover and viper’s bugloss, produce lots of nectar but very little pollen, while poppies are heavily laden with pollen but produce very little nectar. Again, the more diversity, the better! Against the startling backdrop of meadow loss, you can see why every little bit we as gardeners can do makes a big difference, throwing our pollinators a vital lifeline.

QUANTITY AND DIVERSITY ARE KEY

See over for Trevor’s guide to making a meadow to suit your space, and check out his top 10 plants for pollinators at

Diversity of flowers is crucial, as different sizes and shapes suit different pollinators