Sunshine at last

A week with some sunshine has made a difference. There isn’t a bigger variety of flowers yet but it certainly looks more meadow like. It was nice to see some wildlife enjoying the flowers already, including a 14-spot ladybird and a few garden chafers. A wild shady patch under the trees in the formal garden,…

Wild patch in winter

The wild patch looks quite bare but there is plenty to see on close inspection.   How it will look in May Elsewhere, in the iris bed I made in the autumn, a tiny, beautiful and rather unseasonal sprig of common ramping fumitory

Nearer the sea

Several specimens of common ramping fumitory close to Marldon football pitch and a good example of hedge mustard. In Plymouth, there was some musk storksbill near the underpass between North Cross and Armada Way.

Slapton

We went to Slapton to see the humpback whale that has been visiting Start Bay since the end of February. We didn’t see the whale – apparently it comes into the bay with the incoming tide – but we did see a harbour porpoise and reed buntings. There were swans, grebes and a lot of…

Clovers and more

Red clover is prolific but there are also some big clumps of the less common zigzag clover growing between Moorhaven and Green Lane, and also along Bittaford Road. Zigzag clover flowers are looser and larger, and always a deep dark pink. They stand away from the leaves, on stalks about a centimetre long. Where the…

Weeds

In the garden, a tiny specimen of common ramping fumitory, some lady’s smock and yellow rattle that we planted to kick-start a wild flower patch by parasitising the lawn. There are five species of speedwell: germander, wall, thyme-leaved, ivy-leaved, and slender speedwell. Other flowers thrive through lack of weeding rather than by design. Common cow-wheat in woods in South Brent