wildflower bucket

Not many of us have room for a wildflower meadow, but how about having your own mini wildflower patch to carry around? This lovely bucketful of flowers will also attract lots of visiting insects to your garden to help pollinate fruit and vegetable plants.

You will need

• ✿ plastic or metal bucket
• ✿ gravel or large stones
• ✿ potting mix
• ✿ selection of annual wildflower seeds, such as corncockle (Agrostemma githago), corn chamomile (Anthemis arvensis) and field cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)
• ✿ small plate
• ✿ watering can with a fine rose

Step 1

Ask a grown-up to puncture or drill several holes in the bottom of your bucket. Add some gravel or large stones to the bottom of the bucket to help with drainage.

Try this... After the wildflowers have finished flowering, you can leave them to form seedheads. Then collect the seeds and keep them somewhere dry, dark, and cool ready for sowing the following year.

Step 2

Fill the bucket with lots of potting mix, firming it down with your hands as you go. You may need to ask your grown-up to help you tip the heavy bag of potting mix into the bucket.

Put a selection of wildflower seeds on the small plate and mix them up with your finger. Sow the seeds by sprinkling them over the surface of the potting mix.

Step 3

Gently sprinkle a little more of the potting mix over the top of the newly sown seeds, so they are just covered and no more.

Water the seeds in well before placing the bucket somewhere sunny. Remember to put a fine rose over the spout of your watering can so that you don’t disturb the potting mix around the new seeds.

As the seeds grow, thin them out so that there is about 4in (10cm) between each plant. Thinning out in this way gives the new seedlings plenty of room in which to thrive and grow.