... Just not the one with the gigantic, people-squashing, city-destroying, monster.
I am extremely pleased with how this sun-behind-a-dandelion-clock photo came out. Extremely.
The clover field in question
On this lovely Bank Holiday Monday, I took Bitey on a long walk in order to get some photos for Melanie's May Photo Submissions: Favourite Native Plants.
Despite traipsing all the way over to Southrepps, I only saw one example of my favourite plant (early on in the walk), and I didn't take a photo of it as I was sure I would see more later on. Which I didn't. So, here are some of the other native (and non-native) wild flowers that I passed on my perambulations:
Red (even though it is clearly not red) campion and sprays of cow parsley
Some sort of hawkweed
A sow thistle...
... which I rather liked because of the sinister-looking flower buds and spiny leaves lurking behind it
Non-native rhododendron growing in the wild
Yellow flag iris...
... and its rather crap close-up
Cranesbill growing through a tuft of compact rush
The bluebells are going over, but still manage to look pretty
One of the elusive moorhens at the Shrieking Pits
A gorgeous dog rose with an intoxicating scent
I can barely make them out because of my rubbish colourblind eyes,
but there are red poppies in this fallow field
My allotment, which seems to be more wild flowers than fruit & veg
(Hello, spray of ox-eye daisies!)
And finally, the subject for Melanie's May Photo Submission (favourite native plants):
A foxglove sentinel watching over my raspberries.
(Good job I let them have free rein of the allotment!)
For anyone who'd like to take part, you have until the end of the month - i.e. this Wednesday! - to submit your snaps to Melanie. For further info, click the link above.
Splendid photography, Mr DeVice! I love 'em all (especially foxgloves and bluebells)!
ReplyDeleteHowever Rhododendron ponticum does need to be grubbed out wherever it grows, for, like bracken, it poisons the soil around it so practically nothing but it can grow - and it is a carrier of a fungus that kills our native oak and larch, to boot. Beautiful but deadly. Jx
I knew it was a non-native pest, but I didn't know it was a plague carrier! Oh, dear... and there's so much of it around here, too.
DeleteWell said, Jon, about the Rhody.
ReplyDeleteDo Foxgloves only flower every other year, because now I think about it I haven't seen any in my garden this year.
I sent Melanie my pictures last week - I can't believe I've been so organised this month!
Sx
Yes, Ms Scarlet. Foxgloves are biennial, so only produce their flower spike in their second year. Sounds like you need to do what I do too, and sow some seeds next year in order to have some flowers the following year. Mine in the garden (not the allotment) are mostly all here one year, gone the next - this year is a "gone" year.
DeleteI shall be over at Melanie's shortly (once I've answered all these comments)!
Did you have to hold your breath whilst taking that sun-behind-a-dandelion shot so that it wouldn't blow away?
ReplyDeleteAs it happens, I did! I also had to make sure I wasn't laying in hedgehog/fox/deer shit.
DeleteAlways a treat to see your "borrowed view(s)" I think I've sent Melanie some pics.But my thinking is a bit faulty so I'd better check...
ReplyDeleteDid I spy Bertie on the path, or can my eyes not distinguish dog from campion?
Oh, yes, about weeds that can introduce nasties. Australia has a pretty strict law concerning some weeds, too.
I think the path shot is Bertie-free. As I recall, he was off to the right investigating some poo of some description (see my reply to The Very Mistress above).
DeleteDid you have to lay on the ground to get that dandelion shot? How is it bitey didn't think it was a game and ruin the moment? My dogs always become the silliest of creatures when I lay down. Whatever I'm doing they think it should be and instant game of dog pile.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was fortunate that Bitey was otherwise occupied with poo, otherwise I would have been covered in a small, excitable dog! That dandelion would have been toast, too.
DeleteCrimson & glover, over and over - cheerrio my friend, yuhudaduddelduuh
ReplyDeleteI have just googled it and I'm listening to it now. Apparently it didn't chart in the UK, despite success pretty much everywhere else.
DeleteAh, look at that! I pulled off a polite sideboard invasion. :)
ReplyDeleteAh, bravo! Very restrained. (I did see it a few days ago, although it's gone now)
DeleteI take that back - it had just been knocked out of Blogger's ridiculous "top ten" thingy.
DeleteI'm quite taken with the clover en masse, I've never seen it that shape and colour before. Bluebells are classed as weeds in my mind, though nice to look at in the wild, as your photographs prove.
ReplyDeleteI think that long red clover is a green manure and/or hay crop deliberately sown. The field next to the allotments has since been mowed (for hay? as it's not all left to rot down), but I haven't been back to the pictured one since.
DeleteBeautiful photos! The dandelion puff looks like a Modernist light fixture! Dang! But I'm bummed about the rhodies. I never knew that. Killer rhodies. HUH.
ReplyDeleteI'd love a dandelion puff light now!
DeleteI didn't know that rhodies were such killers until Jon pointed it out, either.