I hope I'm using the right tag for this..! But hello, I live in OK and I have 2 acres of land with very sandy soil, alll covered in a variety of grasses but nothing like bermuda or other aggressive species.. Hoping to add some wildflower cover to it as we're sorely lacking any flowers! Is there a preferred method of getting rid of weeds in roughly a 30×30 foot area? I've heard its not good to till deeply, can I simply roughly rake an area or should it be fully clear of grasses and weeds first?
by FierySkies
6 Comments
No help on site prep, just wanted to add that I’m genuinely shocked to see all native plants when I looked up this mix!
Usually mixes like this (especially those that don’t explicitly say native) are awful and contain mostly nonnative plants and even invasive.
it’s ok to till if you aren’t doing it all the time. it’s destructive to do it every year, but once to get a new patch established is not going to hurt. I often prep new areas by digging with a spading fork (gentler on soil life) and pulling existing plants by the roots, but I’m usually adding much smaller spaces at any one time. you can always do the sheet mulch and wait method, but that takes a long time to effectively kill everything, so tilling is probably the way to go. mulch lightly after you plant with some seed-free straw or similar to prevent erosion while your seeds are getting established. bare soil is soil that is being damaged, so you don’t want to let it sit that way. make sure you go through and fully remove your grasses and weeds first or they’ll just grow back, and tilling has the downside of bringing existing weed seeds to the surface where they will gladly sprout, so you’ll have to do more weeding with this method, which can be tricky if you don’t recognize everything you’re planting.
Yeah hit it with a bow rake and you should see some germination. If you want a more precise approach use a dibber to poke little holes thru grass and drop seeds in. I don’t cover them back up very much, just step on them.
If you want a proper site prep you probably need to have soil delivered to fill it in, I think flipped sod needs a while before the grass all dies, like over winter would be ideal. Depends on your area I’ve had people disagree on this but when I flipped sod the grass keeps growing out the edges for months and I still needed to add soil to make it level.
Look up Benjamin Vogt and read his recs (or watch a YouTube) for site prep. He’s in Nebraska. I know that’s far from you, but climate wise, he’ll have a lot more relevant advice than folks in PA or MA.
Howdy neighbor!!!! I don’t have input beyond what’s already been said but glad to have you here
https://www.prairienursery.com/media/pdf/seed-mix-establishment-guide.pdf