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…

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

New Year’s resolutions

Cut carbon, fight climate change, keep plastic out of our lanes and waterways (more on that later)… Our Devon stone walls and banks are amazing. Here’s a random small patch: There are some patches of colour, even on a misty January day and the cherry-pie smell of winter heliotrope. Lichens and moss, as colourful as…

Ugborough Beacon to Aish

A lovely varied walk around Ugborough Beacon to Three Barrows and back to Moorhaven via Corringdon Ball and Aish.  The grass on the more sheltered eastern face of Ugborough Beacon was full of heath milkwort in colours ranging from ultramarine through white to pink. I checked the bracken above Peek Moor gate to see if…

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 on Bittaford Road

Early purple orchids are flowering at the junction near Ash Rosettes. Beautiful, but far fewer than last year. Cow parsley, hogweed, and garlic mustard (Jack-by-the-hedge) are giving the verges some height now. An early specimen of red clover, rather chewed.

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…

Along Bittaford Road

Spring has definitely arrived along the verge. Near the houses, there are bright blue forget-me-nots and carpets of yellow celandines and primroses. Ivy-leaved toadflax on the walls, and cornsalad. On the grassy verge, daisies, primroses, common mouse-ear, greater stitchwort, Alexanders, dog’s mercury, cow parsley, and a rather early greater burnet saxifrage.  Purple and white sweet violets and early dog…

New Year’s Eve

Holly and ivy for Christmas and lots of new growth in the hedgerow, notably cow parsley, goose grass (cleavers), and shining cranesbill. Spotted medick leaves are easier to see now than in summer. New flowers of lesser periwinkle, dog’s mercury, winter heliotrope and pink purslane alongside a few scattered flowers of shining cranesbill, rough chervil, nipplewort,…

Things that look like cow parsley, part 4

Some umbellifer seed heads: rough chervil, hogweed, cow parsley, hemlock water dropwort, and ground elder.

the end of May

It’s all change as spring gives way to summer, the bluebells give a final flourish and the bracken unfurls. Campions, buttercups and cow parsley are at their best and pink purslane is still going strong. Look out for garlands of tiny black bryony flowers   You can pick the top few leaves of young stinging…

Things that look like cow parsley, part 2

Cow parsley is almost over and is gradually being superseded by rough chervil. Rough chervil has similar flowers, and bracteoles but no bracts as with cow parsley. Its distinctive characteristics are hairy stems that are often purple – cow parsley stems are smooth and green – and drooping flower buds. Ground elder is dominating the…