Last year's unexpected success at the wildflower patch raised my expectations to unreasonably high levels for this year and I quite honestly should have known better.
I wrote about all the bother back in July which had left me feeling slightly demoralised. The amount of backbreaking and sweaty work we have put in this year is disproportionate to it's performance and for the last few weeks nothing much has been in flower so we took the decision to cut it. The cut happened so much later last year as the flowers kept coming but this year they gave up the ghost.

I'm usually a very decisive person; there's nothing that pisses me off like a persistent dither and if I feel strongly I decide quickly, if I couldn't care less I decide quickly as I don't want to be continually reminded of  a quandary. However, I just couldn't settle on a way forward.
C has stepped centre stage with his plan which is a relief as I'm sure he's been reading up on best ways to tackle issues.

I think if it was just my passion then I'd be seriously considering calling it a day as the obstacles to overcome have felt omnipresent and the time needed to broach them has been too much. If I'm honest it has left me angrily frustrated at how despite all our work it went wrong. The thistles, nettles, mugwort and bindweed could have smothered the entire lot in a matter of weeks. 

Next year might be smaller, might be divided, might be earlier or later but it will be something. 



Back in July when there was something good to see.

Here's to next year and hopefully some flowers then. Incidentally, I will call it the flower meadow as it was never intended as a 'native' or authentic wildflower meadow, only as a whole un-gardened expanse of blooms. I'm sure the figure bandied around was 98% of wildflower meadows have been lost and I wanted to re-instate a little bit, just for the goodness of it, both for me and the wildlife. This year hasn't been the smooth sailing I had hoped, but a change of tactic from C to include grasses, different seeds, mowings and divisions may yield a different outcome next year.

Take care,
Sophie