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A hands-on guide to creating a wildflower meadow in any garden — from soil preparation and seed choice to maintenance and seasonal care.

Cover of How to Make a Wildflower Meadow — James Hewetson-Brown
Paperback · 256 pages · 206 × 229 × 17 mm
ISBN 9781739903916
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Filbert Press

How to Make a Wildflower Meadow

Tried and tested techniques for new garden landscapes
By James Hewetson-Brown

Flowering meadows are beautiful to look at and promote a sense of well-being, but they can be difficult to establish. This book offers practical, eco-friendly advice and over 30 case studies by an expert practitioner. Read it and have a meadow flowering in your garden the same year you plant it.

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“No nonsense guide full of fool-proof advice.”

— Helen Bostock, RHS Wisley

“The most comprehensive guide to creating a meadow I've ever seen.”

— Kate Bradbury, BBC Wildlife Magazine
Inside the book

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What reviewers said.

  • This isn’t some wistful fantasy longing for a landscape from a bygone era but a no nonsense guide full of fool-proof advice and real-life illustrations for the practitioner. Hewetson-Brown is at the cutting edge of the industry. In this book he provides the reader with novel techniques fit for the 21st Century where meadows matter more than ever before. Essential reading for the modern meadow maker.

    — Helen Bostock, RHS Wisley

  • Here is someone who really knows what he is talking about and describes it with clarity and detail. …The book is well designed and laid out, with clear type and lovely photographs. With its cutting edge techniques, it is practical as well as inspiring, an invaluable manual whatever the size of your garden or project.

    — The Reckless Gardener

  • This is a comprehensive guide to making and maintaining all kinds of meadows, with extensive advice, and more than two dozen case studies. These include wildlife meadows, wildflower roofs, community schemes and the meadow stage-set created for Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

    — Jane Powers, The Sunday Times

  • In the most comprehensive guide to creating a meadow I’ve ever seen, he discusses the pros and cons of using seed, the merits of adding annuals and how to keep the display going for as long as possible. His book leaves us with no excuses not to try creating meadows of our own.

    — Kate Bradbury, BBC Wildlife Magazine

  • …a book that seeks to enthuse and inform ‘meadow makers’ large and small, whether creation or enhancement.

    — Keith Datchler, People Need Nature

  • James’s book is an essential guide to achieving the ultimate wildflower meadow.

    — Kevin Hobbs
About the author

James Hewetson-Brown.

James Hewetson-Brown

James Hewetson-Brown comes from a Hampshire farming family that has been producing turf for three generations; his father David began growing soil-less lawn turf at the family's arable farm near Basingstoke in the early 1980s. In 2003, frustrated with the failure rates of conventional meadow seeding, James founded Wildflower Turf and developed the UK's first soil-less growing system for ready-made wildflower meadows — a technique that gave landscape professionals an established meadow on day one rather than three uncertain years later.

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