Spring 2023

Even with a spring that went from very cold and wet to unusually hot and dry in the blink of an eye, it amazes me how the meadow transforms from resting in March (below) to exuberant growth in just a couple of months. By April Fool’s Day, there are plenty of primroses and dandelions to…

Second May

I thought it would be interesting to compare this year’s meadow with last year’s. Here is how it looked in early April last year, on the left, and in late March this year on the right. Similar comparisons from mid to late May, with last year on the left: It is impossible to say yet…

Evening in the garden

My camera insisted on using flash on a bright evening, with some nice results. There is a wild patch under the sycamore tree where red campions are thriving, and also the last few early dog violets.

Peas, hawksbeard and mutant plantains

Many relatives of the pea are flowering now. At Ivybridge station there are two sorts of medick, spotted medick, black medick, and lesser trefoil. Black medick, with dense pompoms of flowers and a tiny point – mucro – on the tip of each leaf: Lesser trefoil, with looser flower heads: Vetches and clover are part of the…

April sunshine

The burst of sunshine over the weekend has brought out some new flowers along Bittaford Road, including the first delicate lady’s smock. There was a clump of greater chickweed. It was hard to do it justice with my phone camera but you can see the 10 stamens – each purple blob is a pair – that distinguish it…

Biodiversity

I counted over 90 different species currently flowering between Moorhaven and Green Lane, starting with the weeds in our garden (1-36), progressing to Moorhaven communal gardens where Perforate St John’s Wort (37) and Dark Mullein (38) were growing in a weedy border (they could have been planted there originally), and then via Wrangaton Road to the…

mid-May sunshine

Greater celandine has appeared this month, a relative of the Welsh poppy and not of lesser celandine. It is named after the Greek ‘chelidon’ or swallow, as it flowers when the swallows arrive. The bright orange sap is said to cure warts and for this reason, greater celandine was often planted around the walls and gateways of houses, where indeed it is still…

Spring

Some welcome sunshine this week   From a car, Wrangaton Road is fast and litter-strewn, but the views are lovely and the open verges between Bittaford and Ivybridge station support a different variety of flowers from the shady lane between Moorhaven and Green Lane.   Alexanders is just coming into bloom. Also known as Roman parsley,…