Home Composting & Your Free Seeds

You may be surprised to learn what can be composted, so below we have some useful links for you.  As for the flowers and packaging you receive from Flowers To Yours, everything is home compostable. Greens for the Nitrogen-rich elements the flowers, starch bag & moss and Browns for the Carbon-rich elements the box, flower sleeve, raffia bow and literature.

Greens are usually the more moist items like flowers, vegetables, vegetable peels, fruit, coffee grounds, tea bags/leaves etc.  See a fuller list further on.  These elements are the Nitrogen-rich goodies that go into your compost pile. You’ll also need some Browns to help add aeration to your pile whilst adding structure to your compost. Your browns are the carbon-rich elements.

So how will your delivery breakdown in your compost pile.  Your flowers, moss and starch bag are your greens, whilst the box, raffia and literature telling you how to look after your flowers are your browns.  Don’t forget to shred the box and literature into small pieces as this will help with the composting process.

The Composting Ratio

The greens to browns Ratio, what is this, as a reasonable guide. You will often see recommendations for an ideal ratio of browns to greens. Generally, a ratio of three- or four-parts browns to one-part greens is great, but you do not need to be exact about it.

If you do not get a good mix of brown and green materials, your compost pile may not heat up, may take forever to breakdown, and may start stinking up the place. These issues can usually be remedied easily by tweaking the ratio.
If you find that your compost pile is not heating up, then you may need to add more green material to the compost. If you find that your compost pile is starting to smell, you may need to add more browns.

In the end, decomposition happens. It is a natural process. Pile your compostable items, turn them (or not) and, in time, you will have compost. It really is that simple.

Things You Can Compost

Here are a list of the Greens & Browns for your home composting bin that you get from your Flowers to Yours delivery. Follow this link to see more, but for now here are the things you’ll receive when you get your flowers from Flowers to Yours.

Greens for your bin

• Flowers
• Moss (Moss generally takes longer to break down, so it’s a good job we’ve only sent you enough to keep your flowers moist whilst traveling)
• Starch bag

Browns for your bin

• The box they came in
• Your paper literature on how to care for your flowers
• Raffia tie that holds them together as a hand tied design
• The flower sleeves that protected your flowers whilst in transit

Now here’s the really good bit.  With every bouquet delivered, you get sent a packet of seeds and where best to plant them, but in your home made compost.  There are enough seeds to cover 1 square meter. The seeds could either be our bee & butterfly friendly pack or our wildflower mix, you can view the list of seeds here.

Your Free Seeds  -  What’s in the packet?We send out two types of seed mix and the one you get depends on what has been purchased that period and also what’s being grown to make the packets up.  We have a Bee & Butterfly Friendly pack and a Wild Flower Mixture.  If you’d like to know more about the mixes then read on for the full list and some other useful information.

NATIVE WILDFLOWERS
100% SPECIES RICH NATIVE WILDFLOWER MIXTURE

THE SPECIES RICH MIXTURE contains twenty three native British wildflower species typically found in areas across a diverse range of soil types.Consisting of 100% wildflowers, The Species Rich Mix creates a permanent sward with flowers from May to October and suitable for creating habitats in areas containing a range of micro climates or where there are no particular severe weather conditions to overcome.

BEE & BUTTERFLY
100% NATIVE WILDFLOWER MIXTURE

Bee & Butterfly Mix contains twenty six native British wildflower species, consisting of mainly perennial species and a handful of annual and biennial species to create a permanent area of abundant wildflowers.
The species included in this mixture create an attractive display from May to October and is suitable for creating habitats for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

It contains a wide range of species to create a diverse environment and range of food to support local wildlife

The list of Wildflower seeds is shown further on, along with the Bee & Butterfly Mix

Why Sow Wild Flowers

Wild flowers are a very important part of our everyday life providing a rich, colourful and diverse ecological habitat for many insects and wildlife. They also offer great aesthetic value to enhance the natural beauty of the British countryside, motorway networks, parkland and gardens. So if you don’t want to sow them in your garden or window box, you can scatter them on grass verges or anywhere where there is soil for them to grow.  Most councils encourage this kind of planting, but please ensure you are sure you are allowed to sow them before doing so.

Over the past 50 years, the number of traditional wild flower meadows has dramatically declined which has resulted in a noted decrease of British Insects. For pollination to take place, we need the ideal flowers to attract those all-important bees, ensuring plants become fertilised and reproduce.

Your seed mixture contain high proportions of recommended NATIVE WILDFLOWERS on the Royal Horticultural Society’s list of plants which are ‘Perfect Pollinators’.
Native Wild Flowers are important to all of us

The rich and varied wild flower species suited to our climate provides a flowering period from spring through to autumn creating a colourful environment whilst providing a vital habitat for wildlife.

PREPARATION and ESTABLISHMENT

• Remove all existing weeds.
• If the area has been overgrown with weeds for several years, it is important to reduce the number of weed seeds in the soil, it may be necessary therefore to allow time for the first flush of weeds to germinate then remove before attempting to sow any wildflowers.
• Wildflowers prefer a poor soil with low nutrients, so remember not to apply fertiliser.
• Once the weeds have been removed prepare soil to a fine tilth for sowing your wildflowers.
• Try not to disturb the soil any further as this may bring more weed seeds to the surface.
• Sowing times can be any time during the period end-March – end October the ideal time being autumn but avoid the hot summer months.
• Sow seed at 2g/m2, it should not be necessary to rake the seed over as the light helps germination on many species.
• To assist sowing, it’s advisable to mix the wildflower seed in the bag prior to sowing, so give them a good shake in the bag first (small seed will always travel to the bottom of the bag.). This will help distribute the seed mixture.
• The nurse grasses will appear within 7 – 10 days; the wildflowers may vary depending upon species – some may take only a few weeks, while others can take several months.
• Cornfield Annuals flower the same year if sown during the spring or the previous autumn.
• Perennial wildflowers will establish during the first year of sowing and flower in year two

BEE & BUTTERFLY MIX Sowing Rate: 2 gms/m2