end of spring

Spring is nearly over here now. The spring flowers are being over grown by loads of different types of grasses. I went out to the rubbish yesterday and saw a beautiful orange poppy, this morning I discovered that someone had spent yesterday afternoon strimming the verge! I remember going to a lecture at Durham University, when I was in 6th Form, years ago. David Bellamy, talked about conservation and not cutting verges and hedgerows. I'm afraid some of what he said went over my head, I thought some of the verges looked better mown!! However, cutting down a beautiful poppy, for no reason, seems like vandalism, especially as it is the only one I have seen and I have walked plenty in the countryside around here. It is also time now for mowing the hay, this I have no problem with, I understand that farmers need to tend their livestock during the winter.

The only new plants I have seen today are foxgloves and something I do not recognise.

Obviously this is a foxglove.

I have no idea what this plant is, I think maybe it is not in full flower yet.

This is it in 'full flower' I'm still not overwhelmed.

This is the end of the spring meadows, shortly they will all be mown!

My future walks will be used to search for seeds rather than looking for new plants, I just hope I manage to find seeds before someone chops down the plants!

On my way home I picked up a very bedraggled looking, almost dead poppy and put it in water, to my surprise it revived. I think it's a Californian Poppy so it's probably used to draughts! Probably therefore not a real wild flower but an escapee from somewhere, but it's now sitting outside my front door and I hope it will produce some seed.

More Spring flowers!

This week there has been a burgeoning of new varieties of wild flowers, some are easy to identify and others are more obscure. Here are some of those I have tried to photo.

This yellow lupin

and a white vetch,

this one looks like some kind of Dead nettle, I wonder if it is Yellow Rattle or Yellow archangel?

I think this is Moss Campion or Silene acaulis but I may be totally wrong!

Spanish Lavender or Lavandula stoechis

Common Mallow or Malva sylvestris

A Rock rose again, this one is Helianthemum nummularium

White dead nettle or Lamium album

Columbine - Aquilegia vulgaris

Probably Tormentil or Potentilla erecta

wild flowers 4

Last week was too wet and miserable to wonder about looking at flowers so this is week 4.

This isn't exactly a flower it's a very baby chestnut tree.

This is the large variety, it's growing out of a rock! Makes you wonder how much soil a plant needs!

These next three photos show the Asphodel and the Retama as they are now, both blooming.

The majority colour does seem to be white as we can see below, this again is the Helianthemum and the Stellaria.

In fact there are still lots of flowers that give colour, the Green Alkanet and the Buttercup being but two. Most of the new flowers at the moment appear to belong to the Geranium family. I can find names for some of them but not for all.

This is probably Herb Robert or Geranium robertianum

This looks like the Cut-leaved Cranesbill or Geranium dissectum

This is probably Dovesfoot or Geranium molle

There are at least 2 other plants with similar little pinkish flowers but the leaves seem very different. With so much undergrowth it is difficult to get photos that show the distinguishing features.

There are also Vetch around, these seem to be just starting.

Common vetch or Vicia sativa

Bush Vetch or Vicia sepium

The Bluebells are just starting, one does wonder if these are Spanish Bluebells or not.

There are also Wild Pansy and Wild Lupin, nedless to say the one below is the Wild Pansy.

and this one is the lupin.

Bladder Campion or Silene vulgaris

wild flowers 2

One week on and the number of wild flowers just grows and grows. I wish my orchard was covered in flowers like this one is. Mine just grows nettles, bracken and brambles. I suppose it's because mine has been neglected for years! Maybe in a few years I will have some pretty flowers as well.

The tall nameless plant now has flowers showing. This has certainly made it more easy to identify, it is almost certainly Asphodelus albus or White Asphodel.

This picture, above, shows the flowers fairly well but the leaves belong to something else.

This photo shows the leaves, it also shows another plant which interests me. I have always thought that Broom and Gorse were the same, now I discover that, not only are they different, but that there are lots of variations. This photo above shows a white variety next door to a more common yellow one. When I say more common, the yellow varieties are to be found in books on British Flora, but the white variety is by far the more common around here.

I believe this may be Retama raetum, a native of the Middle East that seems to be spreading.

Another flower that have never seen growing wild in England is the Helianthemum or Rock Rose, this is widespread here and very pretty.

It's beginning to look like all the flowers here are white, this is far from being the case, though there certainly are plenty of white flowers.

This is the Bugle or Ajuga reptans,

and this is the Common Fumitory or Fumaria officinalis.