Weather wise this has been a good year for butterflies (in certain respects). 2024 was disastrous for insects generally, cool and damp from spring into summer. That was always going to have a knock-on effect: less butterflies so less eggs laid so less caterpillars so less butterflies.

 The warm, dry conditions thus far have been favourable for such butterflies as have emerged. But here's a conundrum. The rain last year made it made it a lush year for wildflowers but a dearth of pollinators to pollinate them.

 What I'm noticing in the countryside this summer is that it's not very flowery. For example where there were waist-high wildflowers on the Pegsdon Hills last summer now there are dry grasses. Not much to nectar on!

 Here in the UK we have an island ecosystem and a lot of weather. So I don't necessarily want to attribute everything to climate change but we seem to be experiencing extremes of downpour and drought. Rain and sun is what we need, not just one or the other.  

 

Comma basking.

 First sighting this summer of a Jersey Tiger Moth. Formerly a rare species beyond the South Coast, increasingly common in southerly parts of country. I began seeing them in Hertfordshire a few years ago though they have not appeared in numbers as yet this year.

 The summer solstice, the longest day. So it seemed appropriate to do an evening walk along a section of the Icknield Way, that ancient route across the English chalk. The sun was dipping below the horizon in fiery illumination just as we arrived at Knocking Hoe.

 Ivy Broomrape (Orobanche hederae) in flower. There must be a couple of hundred around the grounds of the music school -which is surprising.

 In the 1980s it was considered to be one of Hertfordshire's rarest wildflowers with only one known colony in a churchyard in North Herts. Moreover this was said to be the only site in the eastern part of England north of the Thames. (Ref. Brian Sawford's great book of 1990 'Wildflower Habitats of Hertfordshire')

 I wrote a longer entry on this subject last year [10th. June], suffice to say the Broomrapes at Benslow are an intriguing manifestation of a rare species.

 

 High summer- a shimmering haze of Ox-Eye Daisies.

Garden as habitat.

 Lavendula angustifolia 'Munstead' is a compact Lavender with vivid blue-purple flowers. 

 Like all Lavenders 'Munstead' attracts bees in profusion. For maximum bees it's worth planting one of the Lavandin cultivars i.e. Lavendula x intermedia which is the hybrid of L. angustifola and L. latifolia. They are the most aromatic and bees mob them. 

 

 Commuting into London every day this week I pass this field with a red haze of Poppies.

 

Two men went to mow a meadow (at the music school). Jif worked ahead of me with the brush cutter scything a path. I gathered up the cuttings with a pitch fork and wheelbarrow.

 By way of a contrast Jif keeps the main lawn cut short and stripey using a cylinder mower.

 Spotted this Jay perching on a bench in the garden at the music school. 

 

 By way of a contrast to the Common Spotted Orchid mentioned in my last entry here is the very uncommon Burnt-tip Orchid. Seen here at Knocking Hoe, one of only a handful of colonies in the UK. Neotinea ustulata grows on sloping chalk and limestone grassland grazed to a short sward. A niche habitat much diminished by modern agriculture. 

 There are 52 Orchids native to the UK (or 56 or 57 depending which source you refer to). The Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata subsp. fuchsii) is indeed the most common growing as it does in a wide range of habitats including grassland, heaths, moors, woodland, hedgerows, wetlands, coastal areas, farmland and gardens.

Seeing lots of Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber) in the grassy clinker by railway tracks.

 

Brimstone on Bramble.

 

 Bumblebees are loving the wildly pretty Echium wildpretii.

 

 A short walk on a cloudy Bank Holiday Monday. I've started walks from this point since I was a child. The vista is fundamentally unchanged yet the land and sky is always different. 

 A wild corner of the allotment. Comfrey, Field Scabious, Sweet Rocket, Greater Knapweed, Red Campion, Bramble, Nettles. Those last two were there anyway, the Comfrey self-seeded from elsewhere on the allotment, the others planted now self-seeding as well.

 

 Quite a few years since I last camped on Dartmoor. Nonetheless I was pleased to read today that the right to wild camp on the moor has been upheld in a unanimous ruling by the judges of the Supreme Court. In fact Dartmoor has long been the only place in England where wild camping is legal.

 The four thousand acre Blachford estate was bought by a wealthy couple who subsequently sought to ban camping. That provoked a good deal of controversy but sanity has prevailed.  

 

Plants are good at filling in the liminal spaces.

Taking part this weekend in the annual Telegraph Hill Open Gardens as usual. I'm making a point of directing visitors to have a look at the Echium wildpretii in next door's front garden. It's pulsating with flowers (and bees).

 I'm taking some of the credit because it self-seeded from one I grew in my front garden a number of years ago! These giant Echiums are triennial. They flower in their third year of growth then die but they seed copiously after flowering.

 Looking back over the entries of the past week it strikes me they are as much about habitats as wildflowers. That meadow of Buttercups must never have been sprayed or hardly ever. The anthills and Speedwells on Oughtonhead Common are indicative of an ancient turf. The Hawthorne thicket has spread from the remains of a hedgerow on the brow of Knocking Hoe. The Wild Clary exists on a couple of grassy areas that have survived within urban expansion.

 

 There are a numerous anthills on the dry parts of Oughtonhead Common (which is marshy in places). Quite a few are adorned with Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys). The mounds created by Yellow Meadow Ants have looser soil, extra nutrients gathered by the ants and function as microclimates within the wider grassland. This encourages a variety of herbs including the Speedwells.

Do you like butter?

 

 

 Three bursts of white blossom illuminate the land in springtime. The first burst is Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera) in early March, followed by Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) later in the month. Then Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) as seen above -sometimes called the Mayflower albeit in flower from late April.

 All were standard hedging plants hence their widespread distribution in surviving hedgerows or remnants of hedgerows. Left to their own devices they grow from large shrubs into small trees and perpetuate themselves in thickets by suckering and self-seeding.

 Of course a good many other shrubs and trees are laden with blossom but for sheer quantity these three dominate the spring landscape.  

 

 The urban margins can be productive places to search for wildflowers. This stand of Wild Clary (Salvia verbenaca) is to be found on an unkempt bank between a recreation ground and some garages. Phil Barron drew my attention to this location when we were discussing the much larger colony on Windmill Hill nearby.

 As noted in Monday's entry there would be a spectacular display on the hill with sympathetic management. Fortunately this bank seems to receive little or no 'maintenance' from the municipal mowers. Perhaps it gets an occasional strim that keeps the brambles at bay? 

 Left to its own devices Wild Clary can grow quite tall and prosper among tall grass and alongside taller perennials like Cow Parsley. A rare species these days yet it appears to be persistent/vigorous and these two colonies have survived the urban expansion of Hitchin. The habitat must correspond to its rural past. 

 Two Echiums are getting ready to flower in my neighbour's front garden in South London, They are sometimes called Giant Echium or Tree Echium with good reason. They appeared after a good deal of undergrowth was cleared a year or two back.

 I was delighted because I assumed they are the progeny of a spectacular species I grew in my front garden Echium wildptetii, sometimes called the Tower of Jewels. An apt description in honour of its thousands of red/deep pink flowers. 

 Echiums are triennial. Back in 2018 I was given a seedling of wildpretii by one of the gardeners at the South London Botanical Institute. Rarely grown in the UK it flowered magnificently in 2020 and became something of a local sensation coinciding with the first lockdown. Residents were restricted to strolling round the neighbourhood and this wildly pretty Echium was much admired.

 However I now think we may be looking at not one but two species. The Echium on the right has the slender pointed leaves I noted on E. wildpretii. The one on the left has the broader leaves I associate with the blue flowered E. pininana aka Giant Viper's Bugloss which has naturalised here and there around London.

 Time will tell! Indeed, in their native habitat of the Canary Islands the two species have a hybrid form known as 'Pink Fountain'. One way or another we're in for a treat...

 Windmill Hill overlooks my home town of Hitchin. I see the grass has been left to grow rather longer than usual on one side of the hill. Presumably that's deliberate and creates a nice vista of Buttercups, Daisies and most importantly Wild Clary.

 That's significant because there is a substantial colony of Wild Clary (Salvia verbenaca) which generally gets mowed and trampled. Sometimes known as Wild Sage it is rare. In previous years I have noted the wrinkly rosettes of grey-green leaves in profusion. So they're persistent but they get chopped and stomped before they begin to flower.

 The densest, tallest stands would be on the steep slopes at the edge of the hill where it meets the surrounding streets. Unfortunately they have been heavily mowed! Back in 2020 I saw a vivid purple haze of Wild Clary on these slopes. [see entry dated 14th. May 2020] I wondered how I had never noticed them before.

 The following year I went to have a look. The slopes had been mowed to the ground which solved the mystery. Of course the usual 'maintenance' had ceased when the world went into lockdown. As a result there was a spectacular display of the Clary. Here are a few pics I took at the time...

 The situation may improve however. A month ago I was walking over Windmill Hill and bumped into Phil Barron. He is a very knowledgeable naturalist and active in a number of local conservation initiatives. We spoke of the Clary and he has been able to convene a meeting with the council where he made the case to manage the slopes with the Clary in mind. In fact I believe he used the photos I took in 2020 to illustrate the point.

 A wonderful wildflower growing en masse in the heart of Hitchin. What's not to like? The best things in life are free!  

 Thousands of Ramsons are a grand sight but this solitary specimen has its charm.  

 The garden of my London abode is looking lush. I used to write about it a lot; less so these days as other things have come to the fore. My flatmates and upstairs neighbours have indulged my wild ways over the years and I continue to tend it.

 The garden is quite long but not all that wide. However it feels larger by virtue of the picket style fences on both sides which create a sense of open space with the adjoining gardens. A section fell apart over the winter so I made a rudimentary repair: a couple of lengths of 2x1 for the rails and the slats of a futon bed that was surplus to requirements

 I was chatting to one of my neighbours and joked that it was 'rustic' in keeping with the rest of the fence which is looking very rustic these days i.e. on the verge of falling down entirely. My neighbour understood straight away and said "Wabi-sabi". That is the Japanese aesthetic that has been described as "a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" and as "a beauty of things modest and humble".   

 

 A teeming mass of Ramsons aka Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum). A typical sight in Wales or the West Country but uncommon in Southern England. They grow in great profusion along Tatmore Hills Lane near Preston, Hertfordshire and in an adjacent dell. There are no other colonies of this scale anywhere nearby; this enclave must have persisted for millennia. 

 I have made mention before that this locale has a 'primitive' feel and may have been a sacred grove for the Welei. These were a group of 60-100 people who lived in the surrounding woodland and pasture a thousand years ago. They are referenced in the Domesday Book of 1086 and not much heard of thereafter-  possibly due to the arrival of the Black Death on these shores. [see entries dated 16th. December 2024 and 2nd. January 2025]

 Several local historians have suggested they lived communally and worshipped nature. Perhaps it's a bit fanciful to speculate that they were Pagan communards. But what is the point of wandering through the English countryside if you can't be fanciful?  

 I walked out to a couple of Bluebell woods yesterday. The woodland floor was a shimmering sea of violet-blue. They flowered early this year and will wane soon. I understand why the Japanese practice 'shinrin-yoku' which translates as 'forest bathing'.

 I could have gone sun bathing as well; the temperature was more like flaming June than late April. I was pleased to see a good many butterflies where the footpaths ran next to hedgerows. I spotted half a dozen of our common butterfly species, especially Peacocks.

 Last year's cold damp spring was a disaster for butterflies and insects generally. That will have had a knock-on effect so the warm dry weather we're having thus far is most welcome.