Spotting wildflowers on a local walk Tide Mills is the site of a ruined village in a historic coastal area between Seaford and Newhaven, which is popular with walkers. There were plenty of wildflowers to be seen when I visited in August. After parking off the A259, the path skirts a couple of fields as…
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Limonium vulgare | Sea lavender
Spotting sea lavender on Seaford Head A brisk walk up Seaford Head today, visiting the beach on the way. These chalk cliffs are the start of the famous Seven Sisters. The purple Limonium flowers are in bloom It is August and the sea lavender is flowering in the low grass kept down by rabbits on…
Mindful wildflower walks
Mercy’s exercise blog with wildflowers My friend Mercy writes a running blog. She frequently stops during her exercise to photograph flowers and other points of interest. I particularly enjoyed this post in which she was continually distracted by the things around her. Having just started reading the book Mindfulness for Dummies, I can see similarities…
Elderflower champagne recipe
Mike makes elderflower champagne most years What I love about elderflower champagne is the fresh floral taste, and feeling of a midsummer treat! Making elderflower champagne Picking elderflowers The elder tree, Sambucus nigra, is very common in the UK and flowers late May into early June here in the South East. Our elderflower champagne recipe…
Litlington Flower Festival
I’ve just come back from Litlington Flower Festival Litlington is a small village down the road from where we live in Seaford, Sussex. This year they are running a flower festival over four days in aid of church upkeep and repairs. I may not be religious but I do love flowers and the opportunity for…
Cow parsley | Anthriscus sylvestris
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….
Foodie Fridays in Florida
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…
Jolly Jonquils: Daffodils from Walter Crane
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…
Primula vulgaris | Primrose
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…
Composting for the birds
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…