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…

Moorhaven cemetery

The grass has been left long in the cemetery and is full of flowers and insects. Here are some of the plants growing there. Several speedwells: Some to look forward to: Insects: Plantains and buttercups in the arboretum This goatsbeard is growing in the wild patch in our garden but is worth looking out for…

Winter/Spring

It was definitely still winter on Three Barrows and Wacka Tor today, but in Didworthy it was spring. Water everywhere, but flowers coming up despite the snow, hail, sleet and high winds we had yesterday. It was good to see a few sunshine-yellow dandelions out as they are an important early source of nectar for…

New growth

A couple of weeks ago, under wintery skies, there were already new shoots of hemlock water dropwort, wild garlic and lords-and-ladies in the verge, the first flowers of pink purslane and clumps of snowdrops.  

Leigh Lane and Lud brook

New oak and hazel leaves, holly and blackthorn flowers, and the last few catkins overhead in Leigh Lane. Under foot, bluebells, three speedwells, two violets, and three umbellifers. Yellow dandelions, lesser celandines, and creeping buttercups in Leigh Lane, and gorse and tormentil on the moor. Also in Leigh Lane, pink purslane, herb robert, and campions and white wood…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

March inventory

Linda lent me her camera, which seemed a good excuse to take stock of what is growing between Moorhaven and Green Lane this month. On March 12th 2016, there were the first flowers of golden saxifrage and pink purslane, with a solitary purple and yellow flower of ivy-leaved toadflax that was a bit too small for the…