News And Events

Sowing Wildflowers

Each month, our Educators receive a free resource to add to their kete, and to support children's learning across the curriculum. Many of our Educators nurture a producing vegetable garden at home alongside children in care. Therefore last month, we were having conversations about healthy insects in our garden, and the free resource to accompany this learning was a "Beehive" counting magnetic story.

This month, we continue this exploration and are providing all our Educators with a gift packet of wildflower seeds so they can sow these with the children in care and see how they flourish and what insects they may attract!

Did you know?

Wildflowers provide lots of things that insects need: food in the form of leaves, nectar and pollen, also shelter and places to breed.

You can sow wildflower seeds just about anywhere! A square metre or two in a courtyard, dollops under roses or in the veggie garden, down a drive, or go for gold with a full-sized meadow! The site does not have to be flat. Banks are good as long as you are able to get on them to clean up. If the bank is very steep look at establishing an area on the crest where maturing wildflowers will seed down the slope, but watch for "wash off' in heavy rain.

Most wildflowers are sun lovers so make sure they receive at least 4-5 hours sun per day—the more the better! But if nothing else is growing on your site (e.g.under large trees) then wildflowers won't either.

Sowing can be any time from early spring through to summer and autumn.

We hope to share some photos on our Facebook page in a couple of months time of how the wildflowers are growing!