Garden designer Ivan Hicks knows a bit about wild flowers. In fact, he has planted the largest international wildflower meadow in the UK at Butterfly World, just off the M25 near St Albans in Hertfordshire. It is an ongoing project due for completion in 2012, and phase one has just opened.

Mr Hicks planted 20 acres with 65 different species, and the magnificent result has just opened to the public.

A few years ago designers went through a wild phase when we saw an abundance of grasses and other meadow plantings in the main horticultural shows, but in recent years there has been a return to more formal planting.

Mr Hicks, whose personal favourites are cornflowers and knapweed, wants to buck the trend. He says that even if you have the tiniest urban garden, you can create a wildflower area which will attract butterflies, bees and a host of other beneficial insects.

Your meadow planting doesn't have to look like an overgrown field — there are many colourful wild flowers which can be grown from seed in pots, and seed companies now provide a huge range of wildflower selections.

“You can do wildflower planting in just a seed tray, the technique is the same as it is on a bigger scale,” Hicks said.

“In a small garden plot you can create a mini-meadow. Like you would if you were sowing lawn seed, you rake the ground and level it off. Wildflower seed prefers low-nutrient soils, so the poorer the soil the better.

“If you have a very rich soil it would be full of weed seeds, and the coarser weeds grow faster. The smaller weeds which butterflies like, such as thymes and poppies and knapweed, will have difficulty competing.”

Rid the area of weeds before sowing and then just sprinkle a packet of wildflower seeds on to your patch.

Not everyone will have a dry, sunny area to grow nectar-rich flowers, but you can buy packets of wildflower seeds for shady areas as well as annual mixes.

“This year at Butterfly World, we have sown the whole site with cornfield annuals — corn marigolds, cornflowers, poppies, corn chamomile. Really interesting mixtures are available now which are called international cornfield annuals, which include Californian poppies and other plants which will give a fantastic display of colour,” Mr Hicks said.

“All these flowers are generally nectar-rich, attracting insects and wildlife of all sorts.”

You will attract more wildlife if you are less tidy, he notes.

“I have a small patch of garden which used to be mown grass, and I have just let the grass grow and it is looking gorgeous. It is a beautiful golden colour and has some wildflowers popping up in it.

“If you are less tidy you'll have more insects buzzing around, and if you get insects you will get everything else because they are the bottom of the food chain. Birds and vertebrates will visit, and if you leave dead logs or a pile of leaves in the corner, creatures will live there.”

Meadow planting isn't high maintenance, Mr Hicks insists.

“To manage your meadow planting, that may mean cutting it once or twice a year and raking everything off. On small areas, if you have weeds you don't like, dig them out. You can buy wild flowers in plugs or small pots, which you plant in your grass and let them go.”

It is possible to colour co-ordinate with wildflower plantings, he says.

“You could design it with two colours, or a colour theme that relates to your house, or a theme that you are interested in. Your garden is a space which can be used as a piece of theatre or art.”

■ Butterfly World Project, Miriam Lane, off Noke Lane, Chiswell Green, Herts AL2 3NY. Tel: 01727 869203, website www.butterflyworld.org