In planning a wildflower meadow, you'll first need to choose your site and estimate the square footage of the area. Since most people are not that familiar with square footage calculations, the diagrams below may help you. To find the square footage of any square or rectangular area, simply multiply the length in feet times the width in feet. For example, a border 50 feet long and 10 ft. wide is 500 sq. ft. in area (50x10=500).
For a circle, the area is equal to "pi" r squared, or pi (3.1) times the radius of your circle, squared. If your circle is 20 ft. across, its radius is half of that or 10 ft. So to get the square footage of the circle: 3.1 x 10ft. x 10ft. = 310 sq. ft.
A common sense hint: As a size comparison, there are about 250 sq. ft. in the area of two parking spaces in a parking lot.
The amount of seed you should plant depends on the flower display you want. Most of our customers usually want maximum bloom:
From our OnLine Catalog, all mixtures. (All mixtures are pure flower seed with no filler,no grasses.)
Take your choice of
three ways to plant |
Lush Stand
(almost solid flowers) |
Average Display
(good coverage) |
Meadow Look
(scattered flowers) |
| 1 pound plants up to: |
1,500 sq. ft. |
2,000 sq. ft. |
4,000 sq. ft. |
(1 acre = 43,000 sq.ft.)
Note for large plantings: If you have a large site, from ½ acre to several acres, your planting rate may be affected by land conditions. If you have heavy weeds on the site now, some erosion, generally poor soil, or other land problems, additional seed is usually the most economical solution, since installation of a large planting usually costs more than the seed. If your site does have some problems and you want to build in some assurance of full coverage, use a per pound coverage rate of 1000 sq. ft.
For Smaller Plantings: Coverage ranges for Oz. and 1/4 size packages are on each mixture page in OnLine Catalog.
Note re. species: If you need coverage for individual species plantings, please contact Mike Lizotte. The recommended rates vary greatly, species to species.