Naturalizing with wildflowers

I'm new here so it's cool to see people in my area on this forum. I'm in Harrisonburg, in the Shenandoah valley for you folks not from around these parts, and I'm ooking for some help on a project for my side yard. It was overgrown with brushes, weeds, etc up until last year when we brushogged it all summer. I'd like to create a naturalized meadow over there but it's still got many of the runners from the honeysuckle and other weeds. I was going to spread a bunch of wildflowers seeds and hope for the best. I'd like some ideas for giving them a fighting chance without having to do anything drastic like tilling it or covering it in weed killer. Any thoughts?

Hi Blue - Sorry that I don't have any answers about your question. I did want to welcome you here and tell you that I am not too awfully far from you. I live in a small town called Crozet which is about a 15 minute drive west of Charlottesville.

For seven years I lived on your side of the mountain in Stuarts Draft. It is so lovely over there, but this is where my heart is.

A little story about my use of wildflowers....I bought a boxed mixture of wildflower seed last year from an everything for $1 store. I sprinkled them in several places and had a few pretty flowers come up. All summer I watched this one green stem grow and couldn't decide if it was a weed or a flower. I decided to let it grow though.

About the time that all my other plants had it for the season and were drying out and dieing back, this stem decided to come alive with some of the prettiest pink flowers that I have ever seen. By this time, the plant was about three feet high. Thanking back on it, I should have taken a pic.

I really liked that surprise.

Ruby

Morning bluesjuls! Welcome.

The considerations with a meadow are that a true prairie-type of meadow is quite a bit of work because away from the natural conditions of the prairie (fire burning it down every few years), the natural course is for the land to return to woodland.
That said, though, you could put native flowers like echinacea, liatris, rudbeckia, and solidago there. You can mow it in the spring to allow the plants to self-seed and still mow down trees that may have sprouted. But if you start it with a lot of grass still gowing there, the established grass may predominate. That's why killing with a good heavy layer of newspaper to smother everything first is recommended.

I have been doing this in my drainfield for the 5 years we've been here, and it's working pretty well. Not enough flowers have started up for my ultimate plan to have taken effect, but then I'm cheap and haven't spent much for seed. My biggest problem, I think, is ensuring that the seeds stay moist enough for good germination rates. I have to rely on Mother Nature in that spot and she hasn't been too reliable about rain the last few years. :)

Here's a company that specializes in seed mixes sold in bulk. They have quite a few without the seeds that will become invasive. They have some good reference info, too.
http://www.prairiefrontier.com/