Build a meadow! Turn an ordinary flower patch into a little ecosystem; fill a space with plants that will attract animals (including deer and rabbits), birds, and butterflies.

Plants that spread easily and offer attractive ground cover are favorable.

Build a Meadow-Inspired Space

If you use a flowerbed or plot to create a lush, overgrown space filled with wildflowers, you’ll have more of a meadow on your hands than just a simple garden. If you have lots of space, you can work on a small field filled with flowers or even a feed patch for pollinators and fauna (like deer, rabbits, and chipmunks). You’ll also have plenty of space for picking and arranging fresh bouquets all spring, summer, and early fall. For smaller spaces, patches, and yards, try using unexpected planters (such as an old bathtub).

Perfect Perennials:

All of these plants will live more than two years and will spread, sowing seeds as the wind blows. Mix flowers into your vegetable garden as well; there’s nothing more beautiful than lush cabbages and tomatoes thriving alongside marigolds and sunflowers. Try adding these to your flower patch:

Daisies
Echinacea (coneflowers)
Lupine
Butterfly Weed
Queen Ann’s Lace
Asters
Sunflowers
Cosmos

Attract Fauna

Looking for flora that attracts fauna (deer, rabbits), insects (especially butterflies and ladybugs), and birds? Plant lots of flowers teeming with nectar to feed the bees! Try these flowers to attract pollinators; not only are they beautiful, but they’re also beneficial to the planet:

Yarrow
Crimson Clover
Alfalfa
Salvia
Milkweed
Goldenrod
Dahlia
Dandelion

Poetic Inspiration

Emily Dickinson’s “To Make a Prairie” (1755):

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee.
And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.”

There’s nothing more poetic than lying on the ground, among the clover, looking at the sky, daydreaming. Take a cue from Dickinson and remember that it only takes one clover and one bee (but we must protect the bees and feed them; that’s why planting certain flowers is so important) and a reverie to create an oasis.

“Flowers” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, (1839):

“Bright and glorious is that revelation, Written all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation, In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.”

An Indoor Meadow with Chelsea Flowers

You’ll feel as if someone has just collected a fresh bouquet of wildflowers while on a long walk in a meadow or foraging in a field. There’s nothing more romantic than these beautiful arrangements that will immediately summon poetic thoughts of bucolic meadows bursting with colorful, lush blossoms.

With spring not too far away, look into sending a loved one (or yourself) something wild and beautiful from Chelsea Flowers, such as:

The Hunting We Will Go bouquet is filled with lisianthus, dill flower, pale pink rose and alstroemeria. It’s the perfect offering for an admirer to give to the object of his/her affection.