Wild patch

A couple of years ago we marked out a small patch of lawn, strimmed it and sprinkled yellow rattle seeds to keep the grass in check. Here’s how it is getting along. Flowering now: prickly sowthistle, herb robert, scarlet pimpernel, ribwort plantain, yellow rattle, cornsalad, common mouse-ear, red campion, common field speedwell, cleavers, wall speedwell,…

South Milton to Thurlestone

There is a small patch of pyramidal orchids where the coast path passes South Milton Ley nature reserve, and swathes of greater knapweed with occasional agrimony. A solitary specimen of black horehound in the hedge opposite the cafe at South Milton sands. The leaves emit a pungent smell when crushed. Prickly blue sea holly is related to the more common wild…

Flowers, fruits and flies

Lots of pink on the last day of July: rosebay willowherb and great willowherb,  brambles, buddleia,   knapweed, anad persicaria. Hogweed provides food and shelter for numerous insects, including this bee-mimicking drone fly and a relative of the house fly called graphomyia. These caterpillars emerging from their silky nest are larvae of the parsnip moth. Their usual host…

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…

Sunshine

The first sunshine for a week has coaxed out tiny white flowers of hairy bittercress and three-nerved sandwort, as well as early wild strawberry flowers and stag’s horn fungus.