In My Garden

Tags

Astrantia, Bittersweet, black bryony, Black Spleenwort, blue-tailed damselfly, butterflies, comma, common blue damselfly, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Essex skipper, Field Bindweed, flowers, fruit tree, garden, gatekeeper, Gladiolus, greengage, hedge bindweed, Hyssop, insects, Jacob's Ladder, Lilium longiflorum, peacock butterfly, perennial sow-thistle, Pheasant Berry, plants, rowan, ruddy darter, runner beans, spleenwort, Stargazer Lily, Suffolk, sunset, Swiss Chard, trees, vegetables, wheat, wild flowers, Woody Nightshade

This post is made up of photos of flowers, insects and other things of interest that I saw in my garden during the last couple of weeks of July and the first fortnight in August.  We spent that time catching up with jobs around the house and doing a lot of gardening as the weather was quite good.

It has not been a good year for insects here; an extremely bad one for butterflies in fact, possibly due to the cool, wet spring and early summer we had.  The flowers and plants had a slow start but once the warm weather arrived in mid July they soon caught up.

A male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum)

We still had plenty of these small dragonflies in our garden until recently but in July they had just started flying.  They don’t just fly near water but find perches all over the garden from which they ‘dart’ to catch passing prey.  In this photo the dragonfly is on the top of a cane in my flower-border and was happy to let me get very close to him.  Ruddy Darters are the only red dragonflies with totally black legs – they also have a small patch of yellow at the base of the wings.  There are black lines on the upper side of the second- and third-to last segments of the abdomen.  The upper half of the eyes are red-brown and the lower half are green.  The frons (the front of the ‘face’) is red.

Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)

I bought this herb late last summer; it survived the winter very well and has flowered beautifully this year.  It is very popular with the bees and smells good too.

Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ (Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. flavescens)

I grew Swiss Chard from seed this year for the first time, mainly because my mother likes it and hasn’t been able to get it for a few of years.  I gave her a few plants and then put some plants into a couple of gaps in my flower-border.  They look beautiful, especially with the sun shining through the colourful stems.  I can’t say the vegetable when eaten has been very popular.  The leaves are like spinach, quickly reducing in size and becoming soft; the stems which I put into the hot water a minute or so before the leaves, have a lovely texture and a very mild taste.  They can be steamed successfully too.  I think it is the mildness that doesn’t appeal – or perhaps the spinach-like leaves.  We love greens in this family and get through large amounts of cabbage, spring-greens, brussels sprouts and broccoli, all of which have fairly powerful flavours.  Perhaps Swiss Chard is too refined for us?

A poor photo of an Essex Skipper butterfly (Thymelicus lineola) sitting on a buttercup flower.

I include this just to prove to myself that we did get a number of skippers in the garden in the summer.  The Essex Skipper is very similar to the Small Skipper but the antennal tip instead of being golden is black underneath, which can just be seen in my photo.

A Greengage (Prunus domestica ssp. italica var. Claudiana)

We bought a young Greengage tree nearly three years ago and this year we got two fruits on it.  We didn’t manage to eat either of them because one or other of our animal, bird or insect visitors got there first.

A Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)

The name ‘Comma’ refers to a white comma mark on the underside of the wings.

Woody Nightshade/Bittersweet berries (Solanum dulcamara)

This has got everywhere in the garden this year!  I have found it growing in amongst the herbs, up through the Pyracantha and it has taken over the two Cotoneasters that grow next to our gas-tank.  (We are not on mains gas here so have a large butane gas tank near the house).  Bittersweet berries are beautiful and are at their most attractive at this stage when some are still green and they are plump and shiny.

Another poor photograph showing what I believe to be a female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Another photo that is proof to me that we had these damselflies flying round the pond this summer.

Female Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus)

Male Gatekeepers are territorial and patrol an area of hedgerow often in corners of fields or near gates trying to deter other insects from entering their domains.  The males are smaller and a brighter orange than the females and have a dark patch of scent glands on the fore-wing.

Ripe Wheat (Triticum spp.)

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the wheat in the field behind our house just before it was harvested this year.

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)

This slightly battered Peacock was sunning itself on the path.  They are very hairy-bodied insects and the colours and markings on the wings are beautiful.  I noticed for the first time the lovely tiger-stripe yellow and black ‘shoulders’ on the fore-wing.

Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis) This one I discovered growing next to our compost bin.

Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

The flowers this year are only lightly marked with pink.  They are usually much brighter.

We are lucky (?) to have both Field Bindweed, as in the former photo, and Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) as here, in our garden. This one was being visited by a bumble bee.

Our young Rowan or Mountain Ash tree (Sorbus aucuparia) had many flowers in the early summer and produced some berries this year. The berries in the photo are not quite ripe yet.  They were eaten by something very quickly once they were red and ripe.

Pheasant Berry (Leycesteria formosa)

I have a pale-leaved Pheasant Berry bush and it has done very well this year, having had enough rain-water at the beginning of the season.  The birds usually enjoy the berries but I’m not sure if the wasps will have left them any!

Lilium longiflorum

The white Longiflorum lilies did a little better this year.  I still had some trouble with non-native Red Lily Beetles but the cool wet June meant the flowers were taller and stronger and the beetles didn’t appear until later in the season when the weather improved.  I was as vigilant as I could be, going out checking for beetles at least twice a day and squashing them when I found them.  Unfortunately, nothing could be done while I was away from home so when I returned I soon discovered the horrible grubs eating the plants.  I removed as many as I could and discovered that spraying them regularly with soap was very effective.

Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) ‘Celebration’

I grew runner beans this year and gave my mother six plants and planted the rest in a gap in my flower border.  They grew up through a laburnum tree and did quite well.  I started them fairly late so they didn’t begin flowering til after mid-summer but the beans develop very quickly and these ones are so sweet and hardly have any ‘strings’.   I love the orange flowers.

The beans with a Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flower-spike and a bumble bee flying towards the Jacob’s Ladder.

The Astrantia, also known as Masterwort, has done well this year.

A male Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

This photo of my lilies (Lilium ‘Stargazer’) was taken well after sunset and without a flash.

I wanted to see if there was enough ambient light to take a successful photo of these luminous lilies.

I then took this photo of a Gladiolus next to the greenhouse

On a church cleaning visit to our church at Rumburgh I noticed this Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigra) growing on the wall.

This plant is mainly found in the west of the country so I was surprised to see it here, almost as far east as one can get.  It loves alkaline soil and here it is growing in the mortar.  A month later and it had gone – removed I presume, in case it caused yet more damage to our poor crumbling church building.

Just below the spleenwort was this patch of Black Bryony (Tamus communis)

A sunset seen from the back of the house.

My music selection today is ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ by Handel.

Thanks for visiting!

June Flowers and Insects

Tags

azure damselfly, Bittersweet, Black-tailed Skimmer, blue-tailed damselfly, common knapweed, Common Marsh-bedstraw, Common Sorrel, Creeping Cinquefoil, Cyperus Sedge, damselflies, dogwood, dragonflies, Elder, Four-spotted Chaser, garden, greenbottle, Hoverfly, insects, Meadow Buttercup, Oxeye Daisy, pond, Pyracantha, Suffolk, White Water Lily, wild flowers, yellow iris, Yorkshire Fog

Until this week we have had a very cool summer indeed which has meant that there have been very few insects about.  The common garden pests, greenfly and blackfly for example, seem to cope with chilly weather but the insects that eat them don’t!  Some of the flowers are continuing to flower a little late but a few are flowering at about their usual time which has made for unusual combinations.

Meadow Buttercups (Ranunculus acris) on All Saints’ Common

We have a number of ‘commons’ here in East Anglia.  A common is an area of land either owned by a group of people or one person but it can be used by the general public in certain ways such as walking your dog or playing sport.  Some commons and village greens have ‘rights of common’ where it is possible to graze livestock on the land.  If you want to use the common for anything other than walking on it or having a picnic, (for instance, if you wanted to camp there), you’d have to ask permission of the land owner.

This is another view of the common showing one of the unusual flower combinations.  This didn’t come out as well as I’d have liked.

The Common Sorrel is flowering at the same time as the buttercups and for a while it looked as though the field was alight with red flames above the yellow.

Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)

Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) is also in flower on the common.

As is Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)

The Elder (Sambucus nigra) is in flower.

The Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is in flower too.

Many people dislike the scent of the Elderflower; they describe it as smelling of ‘cats’.  It isn’t a pleasant smell but it is preferable to the smell of Dogwood flowers!

Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara), also known as Woody Nightshade, is flowering in the hedgerows.

The Pyracantha in our garden is covered in blossom. This is another plant with a strange scent but the bees love it!

I discovered a new plant at the edge of our big pond the other day – a Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus), also known as Hop Sedge.

The plant is quite large and must, I suppose, have been there last year without me seeing it.  Its leaves are strap-like, similar to Iris leaves, so I might have thought it was an Iris.  The flowers are unmistakable though.

The flowers are pendulous, like catkins.

Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Another new plant to our garden is this Common Marsh-bedstraw (Galium palustre) growing by our corner pond.

One of my favourite flowers is this little one – Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans). Its petals are heart-shaped and such a pretty shade of yellow. The creeping refers to its trailing stems that root at the nodes as it grows.

I love Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) too.

A White Water-lily (Nymphaea alba) on our big pond.

Elinor saw the Kingfisher at the pond a couple of days ago and since yesterday we have  all heard the purring of a Turtle-dove in the trees round the pond.  The temperature has risen to 25 degrees Centigrade and I think it has been too cold up til now for the Turtle-dove.

Female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Male Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Male Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella)

I believe this is a male Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata)

Greenbottle (Lucilia caesar) on Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium)

A brightly-patterned Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus)

Male Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)

I hope to see some more insects now the weather has warmed up.

Thank-you for visiting!

Wild Flowers in my Garden

Tags

Bittersweet, Black Horehound, cat's-ear, Common Field-speedwell, Common Mallow, Common Spotted-orchid, Dog-rose, dogwood, Elder, fern, Field Forget-me-not, Field Penny-cress, Field Rose, Fox-and-cubs, Lesser Stitchwort, Midland Hawthorn, Oxeye Daisy, Rough Chervil, scentless mayweed, Selfheal, Smooth Sow-thistle, Smooth Tare, Soft Rush, Suffolk, summer, Water Mint, weeds, White Clover, wild flowers

I will be publishing a short series of posts this autumn in which I will show you some of the wild flowers I have seen in my garden this summer.  The photographs will be ones I haven’t used before.

Many of you will wonder why we have so many weeds in our garden.  Well, er, I like weeds/wild flowers!  We have decided that the part of the garden around the big pond should be a wild garden and this is the place where I have found most of my plants to photograph.  We do try to control the worst of the brambles and nettles and my husband mows and hacks his way through it all regularly.  When we have time we will manage the area a little better.

These hawthorn flowers from our hedge have a definite pink tinge to them. I believe this is a Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata).

As any gardener knows, weeds grow anywhere and everywhere and some of the plants in these posts I will have found in the lawn or in a flowerbed.  We have a country garden and it is surrounded by arable fields and common land.  Weed seeds get blown into our garden on the wind.  We have a hedge round most of our land made up of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, ash, elder and dog-rose among others.  We also have ditches almost all the way round our land – our moat to protect us from flooding.  We are visited by many birds and wild animals and all these creatures may have contributed to the flora by bringing seeds in on their coats or feathers or in their droppings.  We have had quite a damp summer following on from a mild and wet winter and the plants, bushes and trees have grown and grown!  This year, we have found many more different types of plant than usual, as well.

This post will be featuring flowers from early summer – mid May until the end of June.

Smooth Sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus)

The leaves of this plant have been an important dietary supplement for many hundreds of years; they can be boiled like spinach or even taken raw in winter salads.  The plant is thought to be strength-giving and Pliny the Elder says that a dish of smooth sow-thistles was eaten by the legendary Greek hero Theseus before he slew the Minotaur.  The leaves are thought to revive and strengthen animals when they are overcome by heat and its local names of ‘rabbit’s meat’, ‘swine thistle’, ‘dog’s thistle’, ‘hare’s lettuce’ denote this.

I thought I would include this fern in this post although not a flower. It is growing in the hedge at the front of the house and it is the only fern we have. By the end of May it has usually been swamped by other plants in the hedge and we don’t see it again until the next year.

Dog-rose (Rosa canina)

Dog-rose buds.

I was fortunate when I was a little girl to have a mother who didn’t give me nasty medicine like caster oil and syrup of figs.  I was given ‘Halib-orange’ (which tasted of oranges but also contained fish-oil) and also rosehip syrup to which my mother sometimes added a drop or two of cod-liver oil.  Rosehip syrup is rich in vitamin C and I remember it tasting absolutely glorious!

King Henry VII adopted the Tudor rose as his official emblem and the rose has continued to be a symbol of the British monarchy and of England herself.

Oxeye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)

I love Oxeye Daisies – also known as marguerite, moon-daisy and dog-daisy – and when roadsides are carpeted with them I know that summer has arrived.  I remember lying in a field full of them when I was very young and looking through their swaying heads at a clear blue sky – a wonderful memory.

Elder flowers (Sambucus nigra)

Both the elder’s flowers and berries are edible and it is widespread on land with a high nitrogen content.  Rabbits do not damage it and it benefits from their droppings so is often to be found near warrens.

Field Penny-cress (Thlaspi arvense)

Field Penny-cress (Thlaspi arvense)

This plant got its name from the circular shape of its fruit which were thought to resemble a penny.  When crushed the plant has a strong, unpleasant smell and is avoided by herb-eating animals.  The plant was introduced many, many years ago.  Despite efforts to exterminate it the Field Penny-cress still does very well on agricultural land.

Rough Chervil (Chaerophyllum temulum)

Rough Chervil (Chaerophyllum temulum)

This is another poisonous plant belonging to the parsley family.  The word temulum derives from the latin word for vertigo.  If ingested the effect on human beings is that of drunkenness; staggering incapability and shaking. Most unpleasant.

Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)

This plant loves our garden.  It is all over the lawn and when we take our eyes off it for a day or two we find it has rushed onto the flowerbeds and made itself at home there.  I read that it likes growing in grassy places (yes, our lawn) and woodland rides, on calcareous and neutral soils. (I do find a lot of chalk in the soil here).  It spreads by putting out runners that root regularly and it produces nutlet fruits as well.  The bees love it and it is a very pretty purple colour.

Cat’s-ear (Hypochaeris radicata)

Bees and many other insects, love this flower too.  It is called ‘Cat’s-ear’ because it was thought the little scale-like bracts on the flower stem look like cat’s ears.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get a good enough photograph of these bracts to show you.

Fox-and-cubs (Pilosella aurantiaca)

Fox-and-cubs ((Pilosella aurantiaca)

Looking at the second photo you can see why it is called Fox-and-cubs.  These photos were not taken in my garden but in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Halesworth but I haven’t found an opportunity better than this for posting these pictures.  This is an introduced plant and has spread quite happily out of people’s gardens and into the countryside.

Dogwood flowers (Cornus sanguinea)

This is another plant that prefers calcareous soil.  The stems in winter glow with a rich red colour, the birds love the black berries and the leaves turn a wonderful maroon-red in the autumn.

Bittersweet or Woody Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) which grows all over our garden. This plant was growing in the ditch at the front of the house.

When the flowers first open the petals are spreading or slightly curved.  The older the flower, the more the petals fold themselves back against the stalk.  The berries are green at first, then yellow and finally a bright shiny red.  The berries are poisonous and can cause sickness.  The species name ‘dulcamara’ is derived from two Latin words meaning sweet and bitter.  The toxic alkaloid solanin in the stem, leaves and berries causes them to taste bitter at first and then sweet.

Field Rose (Rosa arvensis)

Though called Field Rose it is usually found in woodland or hedgerows.  This grows prolifically in the narrow strip of woodland on the opposite side of the lane in front of our house.

Smooth Tare (Vicia tetrasperma)

It is very easy to miss this little plant.  It is very slender and scrambles about in grass and in hedgerows.  I found it in the grass round our big pond.  The flowers are borne singly or in pairs and are 4-8 mm long.  Another member of the Pea family.

Field Forget-me-not (Myosotis arvensis)

A probably legendary tale from medieval Germany tells of a knight walking with his lady by a river.  The knight bent to pick her a bunch of flowers but the weight of his armour caused him to fall in.  As he drowned he threw the flowers to his lady crying: ‘Vergisz mein nicht!’ – ‘forget-me-not’.  Since then this flower has been associated with true love.  I wonder why the knight was wearing armour when not fighting or jousting?  In 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem based on the story of the knight called ‘The Keepsake’.  ‘That blue and bright-eyed flowerlet of the brook/Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!’.

Scentless Mayweed (Tripleurospermum inodorum)

Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)

This orchid grows very well in our garden.  The leaves are shiny and green with dark spots on them.

Lesser Stitchwort (Stellaria graminea)

Lesser Stitchwort (Stellaria graminea)

This plant grows mainly on acid soils – I found it in our lawn.

White Clover (Trifolium repens)

We have White and Red Clover in our garden.  I have posted photographs of the red before but not the more common white.  This is another plant with creeping stems and we have it in our lawn.  We tolerate it because the bees love it and it keeps the lawn looking green during a drought.

Common Field-speedwell (Veronica persica)

This plant is probably not a native but was introduced at some time in the distant past from Asia.  Its flowers are solitary on a long stalk and the lower petal is usually white.

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica) growing amongst water lilies

This is the commonest mint of all the species growing in the British Isles and has a very strong mint smell.

The next couple of plants I found on the same day as I found the Fox-and-cubs plant in Halesworth.

Black Horehound ((Ballota nigra)

Black Horehound (Ballota nigra)

There is a little alleyway that leads to the supermarket in Halesworth and on one side of it is some waste ground and that is where I found this plant.  Black Horehound smells awful if it is bruised and this has earned it a second name of ‘Stinking Roger’.  Poor old Roger!  It is quite an attractive plant to look at and its smell is its defence mechanism – to stop it being eaten by cattle.  It looks a little like Red Dead-nettle but is larger and coarser.  A third name for the plant is Madwort as it was used in the treatment of bites from mad dogs.  ‘A dressing prepared from the plant’s leaves, mixed with salt, was said to have an anti-spasmodic effect on the patient’ – to quote from the Reader’s Digest Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain.  It could also be used to treat coughs and colds but it was very powerful.  Nicholas Culpeper wrote that ‘it ought only to be administered to gross, phlegmatic people, not to thin, plethoric persons’.

Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris)

This was also on the waste ground though it can be seen on most road verges all through the summer.  The flowers are very pretty and the plant has long been used for food and medicine.  According to my Field Guide young mallow shoots were being eaten as a vegetable as early as the 8th century BC.  Cicero the orator complained that they gave him indigestion, the poet Martial used Mallow to get rid of hang-overs after orgies and the naturalist Pliny mixed the sap with water to give him day-long relief from aches and pains.  In the Middle Ages it was used as an anti-aphrodisiac, promoting calm, sober conduct.  Mallow leaves have been used to draw out wasp stings and the sap, which is quite viscous was made into poultices and soothing ointment.  The fruits of the Mallow are round flat capsules and some of the names for Mallow refer to them – ‘billy buttons’, ‘pancake plant’ and ‘cheese flower’.

Soft Rushes (Juncus effusus) in the ditch at the front of the house

Soft Rush (Juncus effusus) with flowers

These grow mainly on acid soils and on over-grazed land.  They live in our ditches and sometimes spread into the lawn.  The stems are a pretty pale yellow-green and are shiny and smooth.  The flowers are olive-green in colour.  The name ‘rush’ comes from a Germanic word meaning ‘to bind’ or ‘to plait’.  The spongy white pith in the stems used to be scraped out and made into wicks for candles.  I remember on wet camping holidays when young (and there were many of those) splitting rushes with my fingernail and trying to remove the pith in one piece without breaking it.  This was in the days before Nintendos – simple pleasures!