Spotting local flowers out walking on the South Coast
It’s been a while… …as the power ballad goes…but I’ve still been out and about in the Sussex countryside photographing wildflowers! May is Cow Parsley time We often find round here that greenish-yellow alexanders and deep blue alkanet are in flower at the beginning of the month, with cow parsley filling in towards the end….
Although I haven’t mentioned Foodie Fridays recently, I haven’t forgotten about them. In fact on holiday in Florida last month, I was very pleased to find something great happening in the town of Celebration. Regularly in Celebration, there is a take-out night when about fifteen fast food vans all descend on an open space and…
I love Walter Crane’s humorous botanical illustrations And a whole batch of his flowers have now been released into the public domain via Flickr. A selection of dizzy daffodils Daffodils don’t really come under the literal Photographing Wildflowers remit, as the only ones to be seen around here are either cultivated, or garden escapees. But…
A wild flower for Mothers Day Primroses grow en masse along the country lanes of Sussex, especially on grassy roadside banks near Battle. Thirty years ago, back when it was OK to pick wildflowers, my husband used to pick a posy for his Mum to celebrate Mothers Day. I am writing this a week before…
I’m quite proud of our compost bins! We have two bins made out of old pallets from work, each about a cubic metre in size. As well as garden waste and vegetable peelings, I also compost any dried flower sweepings from my shop, so it can sometimes be rather pretty with rose petals and dried…
A buttery yellow wildflower We have a community pond at the end of our road, and at this time of year its edges are a sea of yellow with celandine flowers. They seem to love the damp conditions, and the shade provided by a small stand of trees edging the footpath. The buttery yellow blooms,…
Pink pincushions of wildflowers Living near the seaside, I see a lot of sea pinks aka thrift. The cushions of foliage look very soft and comfy, and the compound flowers always seem so profuse. The wildflowers grow happily in the chalk cliffs at Seaford, unaffected by the strong winds and sea salt. Read more about…
Contrary to the impression possibly given by the title, I’m not particularly into auriculas! I did enjoy viewing this auricula theatre at Courson flower show near Paris last year with my friend Mercy. But personally, I prefer the more natural primulas, such as wild primroses, cowslips or oxslips. But it turns out I have a…
My garden in March I love to get out into the garden whenever the sun is shining, but I must admit I am rather a fair weather friend to my plants. It’s rare to see me gardening before the clocks change – I’m just not hardy enough! Photographing my garden flowers Even when the weather…
This wild flower heralds the coming of Spring The tricky thing about snowdrops for someone like me who is not a botanist, is distinguishing between native wildflowers and garden escapees. These extremely delicate examples of Galanthus were found a long way from any gardens, growing in rough grass about 5m from a road. The stems…