Making a meadow, day 3

Where were the showers we expected in April? After a month of drought and with heavy rain forecast, a group of us spent May day preparing the cemetery meadow. Most of the time was devoted to digging up docks that would obliterate more welcome wildflowers given a chance. Although April’s cold dry weather had held…

November

Teasel seedlings sprouting before they reach the ground: In the vegetable patch, there is a clump of field forget-me-not. Along Bittaford Road: Traveller’s joy

Close up

At a first glance, you might think plants were all dying back now but looking closely there are many flowers still among the seed-heads. Here are some from the verge between Ivybridge station and Bittaford.

Plymouth

A lovely selection of flowers at Mount Wise Redoubt, a part of Plymouth I hadn’t seen before. Many bushes of spiny restharrow (because its tough stems would stop or ‘arrest’ a harrow), with teasels, knapweed and field scabious. I think the knapweed is lesser knapweed but a less common variant that has divided petals like…

To the station and back

A poppy near the church in Bittaford, and some more poppy buds and capsules further on. All along the verge there are patches of zigzag clover, which is less common than white and red clovers but is plentiful here. Note the tapering, pointed stipules and widely spaced brightly coloured petals. Another interesting flower is agrimony, its tall…

South Brent island

There were loads of common red soldier beetles on hogweed and yarrow at the Island.   This is a broad centurion, a type of soldier fly. They are called soldier flies because of their brightly coloured ‘uniforms’. Broad centurion males have bronze abdomens, like this one. Females have blue-green abdomens. This moth is a beautiful golden Y….

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…

The end of August

A mix of late-summer flowers and autumnal fruits, with hedge bindweed stealing the show. Climbers like bryony and vetch are still hanging on, while persicaria, knotgrass, knapweed and the magically-named enchanter’s nightshade are in their prime. Early traces of autumn include blackberries, rose hips, hazelnuts and dandelion clocks.

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…

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,…