Meadowseeds - Bumble bee - 30g. Pratensis

Creating a meadow is probably the best ecological summer bird feeding method! It’s a truly beautiful insect factory, and it's an eternal machine – it only needs to be established once.

We sell Pratensis "Humleblandning". One bag is enough for 10 m² of blooming meadow. Check out Pratensis' website to find out exactly which species are included!

Watch this video about why you should buy seeds from Pratensis…>

For a much wider range of meadow seed mixes and plants, go directly to Pratensis AB. Slåttergubben is already a large customer of theirs, and we are very satisfied. Pratensis is careful to use Swedish genetic material in their mixes of true meadow plants. Be cautious of meadow blends from other seed companies, as they often contain mostly annual flowers that aren’t true meadow plants and weirdly bred varieties.

The meadow, which used to be a natural part of the agricultural landscape, is now more of a relic maintained for its biodiversity in a few select locations. You can help increase the amount of meadowland by creating a small area in your garden. In this way, we can restore in miniature a bit of the landscape that has disappeared out there among the farms and fields. The meadow, with its incredible biodiversity of flowers and insects, was and still is an extremely important habitat for many bird species to forage in. It’s primarily the abundance of insects that attracts them.

In the past, hay was harvested from the meadow every year, so to care for a meadow, you should mow it in late summer and then remove the grass. To create a species-rich meadow, it should be depleted of nutrients. In overly nutrient-rich environments, a few species of grasses and herbs (e.g. Cocksfoot grass, false oat-grass, cow parsley, nettles) take over. From the competitive weak species, there are many more flowers, and those are the ones we want to support. The meadow should ideally be mowed with a scythe, but a trimmer, brush cutter with a grass blade, burning last year’s grass in spring, or, at worst, using a lawn mower will also work. To reduce the amount of nutrients (and thus support the weak competition flowers), the grass should be raked off the meadow, except when burning.

Meadow seeds should ideally be sown in the fall, in August/September, on bare soil that is as weed-free as possible. Choose a spot with poor soil. However, it’s also possible to sow in March-April.

Perennial weeds like bindweed should be completely removed beforehand, as they are difficult to remove from the meadow later. Thistles can be easily dug up with a spade afterward.