How to Sow Yellow Rattle

Sorry for the bad spelling...I'm a gardener, not a wordsmith! How to sow yellow rattle in order to keep the grass down and encourage more flowering plants in a wild flower meadow. The official sewing rate is between 0.1 and 1 gram per square metre. I do more than this because I do patches rather then a whole area. My method works and I have used it successfully a number of times in different meadows.
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[@simoncordingley3122]

Wonderful! I know this is a relatively old clip now, but just for anyone who reads and is interested; there's no need to get covered with muck from the strimmer. All you need do is know which way the head is spinning (most, if not all, professional brands spin anti-clockwise) and tilt the head on a slight angle, so the muck is flicked away and not towards you. Trust me on this! 😀

[@csilk3621]

Thanks so much for this. I think I'd been overcomplicating getting the ground prepared and also realised too late that the seeds should be sown in autumn. As I am due to sow seeds in the next few weeks it's great to see that they will still grow in spring. Really reassuring. Thanks 😊

[@MikeH_PR]

Thanks for the strimmer tip. I scythed then grubbed up as many dominant grass roots, then sowed wildflower seeds last autumn. Very limited success, so this year I'm sowing yellow rattle & use your method of creating patches to get it established 👍🏻

[@HortiCouture]

It may take a few years for the effects to show but it really does work.

[@Mick_Holland]

Have been looking at doing this as part of developing a wild area in my garden. I'm so grateful I stumbled upon your video - the strimmer trick looks like an excellent shortcut to getting down to root level. Cheers 👍🏼

[@HortiCouture]

Thanks!

[@Mick_Holland]

@@HortiCouture At last I found time to get around to this today and, as you say, it's very messy and relatively hard work for an out of condition old boy like what I am. I don't think my trousers will recover & the t-shirt is already in the bin! The seeds - a wild flower/rattle mix - go in tomorrow so am hoping to provide a small haven (I just measured it: 50 sq yds) for the suburban Leicester bees, butterflies etc. come spring & summer 2021. Thank you so much for the inspiration 👍🏼

[@HortiCouture]

@@Mick_Holland You are welcome! That is such good news. Good luck and lets hope the weather is kind.

[@fhvschnvc3411]

Can you get down to rootlevel by doing this? Doesn’t the grass grow back?

[@rtfury6503]

I love your hat. It reminds me of the Flumps!

[@coooooperman]

Thanks for the knowledge

[@HortiCouture]

You are welcome. Good luck!

[@rockinghorsesciencemechani6020]

Just what I needed to know and no B.S. perfect!

[@HortiCouture]

Great! Thank you!

[@glidewatch]

Going to put some yellow rattle in this autumn using your strimmer method and patches to suppress a new field I have taken over with rampant grass. Thanks for your advice.

[@HortiCouture]

Great! Good luck! I have had success in all 4 meadows that I used this method in. Make sure that you get seed from this year and as local to you as possible for best results.

[@glidewatch]

@@HortiCouture Thanks for that. Definitely NOT off Ebay from China!! :-)

[@noga8974]

Thanks for this, it's a very clever method, especially the tamping while eating a sandwich bit 😂

[@saorgaza6068]

Thank you for the video. I am going to plant it my 3 fields in the coming weeks. There are a few patches of purple loosestrife, but otherwise it's alot of grass and big areas of dense rushes. Although l really like both the long varied grasses and rushes in summer, I'm hoping the yellow rattle will reduce both to some degree. I don't know if it has any capacity to reduce the dominance of rushes but time will tell.

[@keithhooper6123]

Sowed some last autumn,but not a lot of vermination.I think not enough frost.

[@jimmagill7973]

I read that you need a frost to get the seeds to germinate, so seeding should be done in November for best results. You were lucky planting in Feb and getting good results...

[@ccs4803]

Er so when in fact did it germinate, when did it flower, when exactly are the seeds ripened - 2022

[@casper1240]

I find Rattle is best sown on short grass without it being scarified ive tried both ways and raking the ground never worked for me it needs Grass roots to latch onto i took over a Ryegrass patch and the rattle is slowly taking over hopefully

[@HortiCouture]

I don't remove the roots, it is only the tops that I remove and I only give it a light raking - just enough to be able to tread the seeds in.

[@keithhooper6123]

Steel blade,rather then nylon,no splatter.

[@barrytipton1179]

Great on a lighter not are u allowed to black up

[@whitevoodooman7276]

Did you put the yellow rattle down to start a wild flower meadow or just to suppress the grass

[@HortiCouture]

Hi. I put the rattle down to suppress the grass. If it ever takes over I will reduce it by cutting before the seeds form.

[@lejimmy]

did it work? Good germination rates? Looks fairly late to sow YR, thus I wonder..

[@lejimmy]

oh ok. I've watched the end now. Well done!

[@HortiCouture]

Yes. This method has been very successful at various meadows that I look after. Once you have a number of patches, nature does the rest.

[@danjackson4149]

i would like to turn a field near where i live into more of a meadow than the area of rough tussocky grass it currently is....dense tussocky grass that smothers everything and prevents anything else from moving in and getting started. i havent the time to do any guerilla gardening involving any digging so i was wondering if you had any suggestion of what i could try? i know that yellow rattle is supposed to be useful, but how easy would it be for their seeds to get through the almost inpenetrable sward and down to the soil? how easy would it be for yellow rattle to colonize such an area? is there any other plant seed that would be guaranteed to break the stranglehold this tussocky grass has got? might another way simply be to dump a lot of tree leaves and or other organic twigs stems etc from the garden in piles on top of the tussocks to 'smother the smotherer'! and provide some kind of access point for incoming airborn seeds to get a toehold?

[@HortiCouture]

If you want a meadow don't make it fertile with leaves etc. Also, the grass will grow up into it and get a thicker root depth. I suggest that you sow rattle but you will need to prepare areas as in my video making sure to cut/scrape to as much bare-ish earth as possible.. There is no way round it. It does work. Rattle feeds ON the roots. Nature does the rest by spreading. You can't really avoid doing a bit of hard work to begin with. It really doesn't take long though.

[@danjackson4149]

@@HortiCouture its waste-land, not mine. i just want to make it look more meadowy. in spite of reading and watching clips, no one has enlightened me as to how wide an influence each yellow rattle plant has; how many would there need to be per square metre? also are there any other semi parasitic (on grass) plants other than yellow rattle?

[@HortiCouture]

@@danjackson4149 You have to just do it and nurture it by adding more if necessary. You can't force nature and you can't do it without work. It is dependant on all kinds of things like climate, seed, how well you do it etc. My way works on nasty tufted tussocky grass but you have to put in the energy into destroying the tussocks. Rattle will seed itself and spread. I have a video to edit that will show this to be true.

[@danjackson4149]

@@HortiCouture if it were my own garden or an area i owned or had responsibility for, i would try detroying the tussocks and rough up the soil surface, but its waste-land. i'm sure there must be millions of people who live in urban/inner city areas with bits of waste land nearby, who would love to make meadows of them if they could find a method that was cheap/free and didnt involve strenous physical effort.

[@danjackson4149]

@@HortiCouture i'm not sure what you were referring to by 'my way'. your clip shows a piece of land that looks like a slightly overgrown lawn. i see no tussocky grass anywhere and have no idea how you're 'destroying' tussocks unless you are referring to another clip.

[@barrytipton1179]

Note

[@jamiewahl8379]

Do you know the botanical name of this plant? I'm looking for some to compete with bermuda grass over here in the States and I'm having trouble rifling through all the different 'common names'.

[@aaronohara34]

Rhinanthus minor, good luck with your project 👍

[@josh._-_]

I'd suggest searching for native semi parasitic flowers instead of this one as its native to Europe not sure if its native to America!

[@lamegalectora]

Men and their power tools... How about some peace and quiet so you can hear the birds singing etc? Granted, it might take a bit longer, but you will be communing with nature as opposed to blasting it with fumes and noise.

[@CodeCancerLab]

It's back breaking work even with the machines, that would be alot of work with handheld tools I'm afraid