First pitch of the year. I went to an organic smallholding in Dorset at the weekend to attend a short course relating to Permaculture- a topic that will feature in future entries as it has a lot to say about food growing, ecology, sustainability and many connected matters. The teacher -who goes by the name of Aranya- is a particularly gifted communicator of the subject and a bunch of interesting people made the journey to participate.
 I've been visiting the area since I was a child and it's a special part of the world for me. Our lovely host Pat has been farming this plot for nearly 20 years, despite the considerable difficulties she has had to overcome.
 Springs bubble up from the chalk hills of the Bride Valley and feed the streams and rivers that run through the village of Litton Cheney to the meadows beyond on their way to the sea.
 Pat has made use of the old channels and sluices and extended them to water the crops; indeed one area of the smallholding is watered by directing the flow and flooding it.

 Early season daffodils bloom cheerfully in late February/early March. There are reckoned to be around 25 species of narcissus in the wild and from these plant breeders have cultivated literally thousands of varieties. In my opinion they tend to be either nondescript or gaudy but the simple crosses between wild species can be very nice in their own right.
 'February Gold' (top) and 'Tete a Tete' (bottom) both have N. cyclamineus as one parent. The former is said to be x pseudonarcissus and the latter x tazetta. 'Rapture' (middle) is clearly a cyclamineus hybrid but with what does not seem to be stated anywhere. In fact it looks like a larger version of the original which is rather dainty at about 6"/15cm tall. 

 A London peculiar. On a grass verge in Church Lane, Tottenham, opposite the cemetery gates grows a multitude of crocuses. Numerous species grow alongside each other (and have hybridized) to create drifts of colour.
 It rates a mention in Richard Mabey's seminal book 'Flora Britannica'. This was published over 20 years ago so I wondered if the colony still existed in this rather unlikely location. Indeed it does, flowering abundantly.
 I can find no reference anywhere as to how this spectacle came into being. It could be some long forgotten piece of municipal planting, though Mabey reckons it to be ancient. Perhaps they have persisted from the time when this was a rural district and manor, before Tottenham was swallowed up by the expansion of Greater London in the 19th. century. The setting might provide a clue: crocuses are often a historical feature of churchyards and cemeteries.
 In some obscure way this tapestry of flowers is a visitation from another age.

 Some years ago my father installed a deluxe pond in his back garden, which to the untrained eye may look like an old water tank. At this time of year it is full of mating frogs, probably 15 or 20 at any one time.
 They're difficult to photograph in their full writhing glory because they dive to the bottom if someone approaches but here are a few snaps. As I stood nearby with my camera there was a lot of croaking going on and the undergrowth was alive with frogs crawling and hopping to and from the pond.
 Any standing water in the garden is likely to attract them. On a smaller scale I dug a trug type bucket into the ground and every year frogs come to it, peering out from the murk.

 I saw some clumps of Helleborus argutifolius while I was out and about. There are many shades of green in nature but comparatively few green flowers. A strong contrast in colour between the flowers and the foliage of a plant makes it more conspicuous to pollinators.
 Nonetheless the bee above found the pale green flowers of this Hellebore, no doubt guided by the scent as much as the colour.

 Lovely Lungworts. Small but beautiful; hues of pink and blue in the flowers of Pulmonaria officinalis (top) and the intense gentian-blue flowers of Blue Ensign, a cultivar of Pulmonaria angustifolia (bottom).
 When the common name of a plant ends in "wort" we know it was once believed to have curative powers. If the Latin name ends in "officinalis" this too indicates it was at one time considered medicinal.
 Lungwort would have derived its name from the medieval 'doctrine of signatures': the belief that if a part of a plant looks like a part of the body it would have corresponding healing properties. The speckled leaves of P. officinalis in particular must have suggested an association with the lungs.
 

 Dank, mysterious Wistman's Wood- part 2. Of the entries in my diary so far the one about this atmospheric and otherworldly place on Dartmoor has been particularly remarked upon (posted 8th. February). So I've dug out a few more photos from my visit back in August 2012.
 It is thought that the Wood (mainly pendiculate oak) is a surviving relic of ancient forest circa 7000BC. Various explanations are put forward for the name Wistman. It may have been a dialect word meaning eerie or uncanny. Then again it might have meant Welshman or wise man and referred to druidic practises. Or it might be associated with the archetypal myth of the Wild Hunt whose hell hounds were called Wisht Hounds in Devonshire folklore.
 Researching the history of the Wood after my visit I found out that it is home to a large number of adders- fortunately (or unfortunately?) I didn't encounter any!
 As mentioned in my earlier entry it is included in Clifton Bain's excellent book "The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland". He cites it as one of the remaining pockets of temperate Atlantic rainforest, sometimes called Celtic rainforests due to their distribution down the westerly side of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England.
 One of the definitions of coastal temperate rainforest is that it receives at least 1500mm of rainfall annually. Dartmoor receives around 2000mm. I can vouch for the amount of precipitation. The day I took these photos the field I was camping in had flooded overnight. I had pitched my tent on a bit of raised ground so I was spared being woken by the rising of the nearby stream; others were not so lucky...