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.