I have an area of established wild grassland that I would like to plant with wildflowers. I do not want to cut it back due to other flowers growing there. area is about 150 square mts. Would I be better planting with plugs or seeds. How many plugs or how much seed.
islayhawk
depends upon the plant, depends upon how densely you want the plants to appear.
however, for an established field you will likely have a hard time getting seeds established without some kind of disturbing of the soil.
using plugs at least means you get some plants established for sure, but then you may also be needed to water for the first season until the plants are established.
i do not recommend seed mixes unless you know exactly what is in the mix as some plants are a royal pain in the ass if they wander out of the wild flower field and into more formal gardens (and the quality of the mix may vary by company or lot and can also include weed seeds -- it is much easier to scan a batch of one kind of seed and notice and remove any stray bits or wrong seeds before mixing).
one approach is to just put in patches where you disturb the soil and then spread the seed mixes or plant the plugs, this results in a more varied landscape which i think is more interesting than a uniform field (and it's much easier to water the patches when seeding or putting in plugs if they are more together than scattered all about). then as the field grows and changes the seeds can spread around.
songbird
You'd do best cutting it all back, just mow at your mower's highest setting... don't worry about your previous plantings, the perennials will grow back in spring and mowing will ensure all reseed. Your area is about 1,400 sq ft, not much to mow.
I have a 4+ acre wildflower meadow (takes me a full day to mow), it contains one spring fed 20' deep pond and several smaller shallow vernal ponds, with lots of wildlife. Each fall I rough mow the entire meadow to keep it healthy, mowing disperses the seed heads and covers them with mulch... that's the time to add seeds (move some mowed debris, scratch soil lightly, scatter some seed, then cover with mowed mulch). High quality wildflower seed blends can be pricey so strew very sparingly, don't need much anyway... best to plant several small areas (naturalized) rather than all in one heap. I plant daffodils and irises, they flower first and deer won't eat those. I mow about six inches high so as not to harm the small critters (frogs, lizards, mice, snakes, etc.), most scatter ahead from the mower vibration. Mowing also prevents birds/deer from scouring all the seed heads clean. Be very careful about what seeds you plant, you don't want to plant any invasives. Meadow:
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