Planting A Native Wildflower Pasture

Q: I remember watching honey bees and rolling in fields of white clover as a child. We have a big back yard, where I’d like a native wildflower pasture. What are your recommendations?

A: Don’t forget that our commonplace white clover, red clover, and hop clover are not native plants. They came to us from Europe, as did honeybees.

A wildflower meadow is beautiful to visualize but hard to accomplish in Georgia. Our climate welcomes lots of plants one would not consider “pretty”. To keep a wildflower area looking good, you have to be an expert at identifying weed seedlings and pulling them out. Some wildflowers grow more vigorously than others, so they also become “weeds” to control. Others bloom for only a short time, requiring a wide mixture of perennial and annual flowers in a wildflower meadow. I recommend you start small. An area of 500 square feet seems reasonable to use as your learning laboratory. I have recommended plants at http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/wildflowers/.