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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: St Mary’s church Homersfield

Spring Odds and Ends – March

26 Sun May 2019

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals, wild flowers

≈ 83 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, blossom, Brown Hare, Bugle, cherry-plum tree, daffodils, daisy, Dog's Mercury, early dog-violet, flowers, garden, grape hyacinth, lesser celandine, leveret, March, Narcissus Rip van Winkle, Periwinkle, plants, pond, primroses, silver-laced primula, Spindle, St Mary's church Homersfield, Suffolk, Suffolk Lane, trees

Not having posted anything for over two months I have a number of photographs of things I’ve seen on my travels or in the garden.  This post will be a selection of these photos.

View from my kitchen window

This photo was taken with my phone early one March morning.  You can see the maple leaf sticker on the glass which works well at preventing birds from crashing into the window and injuring themselves.  Just outside the window is my witch-hazel which is planted in a large pot and also a Japanese flowering-cherry tree tied to canes, in a different pot.  We keep both trees up close to the front of the house to protect them from wind damage.  On the other side of our drive you can see the first of the daffodils in flower along the edge of the ditch.  What really excited me was the sight of a leveret, a young hare ( lepus europaeus), crouched in the grass.  Richard had had a sight of this young animal in the garden a couple of days before this and I was so pleased to see it for myself.

Leveret

I took this picture with my smaller camera from the utility room window and you can see how damp with dew everything was, including the leveret.  It stayed with us for a few days, hardly ever moving from its ‘form’, the nest in the grass it had made for itself.

The leveret’s form

Cherry-plum tree (Prunus cerasifera )covered in blossom

When this tree first grew I assumed it was an early-flowering blackthorn tree as they can look very similar.  However, a few years ago I happened to see some of its fruit before the birds ate it all and realised my mistake.

cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom

Silver-laced Primula

A year and a half ago I was trying to get rid of Common Nettle and Black Bryony in a flowerbed full of primulas and hellebores.  The only way to deal with them was to remove the plants I wanted before tackling the ones I didn’t.  I planted some of the primulas at the edge of a bed Richard grows dahlias in.  This March I was pleased to see that my treasured silver-laced primula had survived the move and two winters.  I still haven’t finished working on that weedy bed!  The Primula has a pretty silver edge to its petals.

Early Dog-violet ( Viola reichenbachiana )

We have these early violets growing in the grass round our pond.

Large pond
Large pond
Large pond
Large pond

Our large pond in March.  The water-level is very low due to insufficient rainfall for a year.

The front hedge and ditch

A week or two on from when the photo of the leveret was taken and the daffodils are all coming out.

I love these little Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’!

Grape Hyacinth (Muscari ), Bugle (Ajuga reptans ), Variegated Lesser Periwinkle(Vinca minor ) and Spindle (Euonymous ) ‘Emerald n Gold’.

This is a very narrow bed alongside the rear of the garage next to the back door.  All the flowers are blue and two of the plants have variegated yellow and green leaves.  However, just to prove that nothing goes exactly to plan, the bed also contains a red-berried Firethorn ( Pyracantha) which has creamy white flowers; this plant was here when we moved here and the birds and bees love it.

St. Mary’s church at Homersfield

We attended church here in March and I thought it looked lovely in the sunshine.

Primroses (Primula vulgaris )

That same day I walked round the garden and then out onto the verge next to the lane  beyond our hedge and found these primroses in flower.  Garden primulas are able to flower at any time of the year as long as it isn’t too hot or too cold.  Wild primroses, however, have their season and late March is the best time to see them round here.

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa )

There is a tangle of Blackthorn on the verge and it was just coming into flower.  You can see our garden over the other side of the hedge.

Here is the Blackthorn on the verge.

It is a very untidy tree with suckers but it has blossom like snow and the fruit (sloes) in the autumn are used for flavouring gin, among other things.

Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis )

We have this rather insignificant plant growing under all our hedges and in amongst the trees near the large pond.  It is often a sign of old woodland and won’t tolerate being disturbed; it fades away.  The male and female flowers are on separate plants.

The daffodils at the end of March

Daisy (Bellis perennis )

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna )

Here is this sunshiny little flower peeping out from inbetween Common Nettles and Ground Elder in the ditch.

These were the highlights of March this year.  I hope to begin an April post as soon as I have published this one.  Whether I’ll be able to finish it and publish it in the next day or so only time will tell!

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Slightly Newer News!

20 Mon Mar 2017

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, walking, weather, wild flowers

≈ 56 Comments

Tags

bird-scare cannons, Christmas box, crocus, Cymbidium orchids, dandelion, Diary, Germander Speedwell, Homersfield church, mallards, miniature iris, Periwinkle, primroses, snow, snowdrops, St Mary's church Homersfield, Suffolk, sweet violets, walking, winter-flowering honeysuckle

p1010687sunday-morning-snow

We had a dusting of snow five weeks ago

This is the view from our spare bedroom window.  We had had a few days of snow showers but nothing had settled until we woke on the Sunday morning to this.  Up until a few years ago we got snow every winter, sometimes a lot of snow; but not now.

p1010691homersfield-church

Homersfield church is dedicated to St Mary

Richard and I went to church together that Sunday.

p1010688russian-richard

Here he is, looking very Russian!

Homersfield church is beautifully situated on a bluff above the River Waveney with its water meadows and marshes.  My favourite approach to it is up a track through woodland.

p1010689homersfield-churchyard

The churchyard. Beyond the trees the land drops away steeply.

p1010690homersfield-churchyard

Homersfield churchyard looking towards the woodland where we park our car.

p1010692woodland-beyond-the-churchyard-homersfield

The woodland with snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)

p1010693snowdrops

Snowdrops

The snow had all gone by the end of the day and the beginning of the following week was mild and sunny.

Richard and I went out for a short walk down the lane.  He can’t walk too far as yet so we weren’t able to do our usual circuit route but it was good to be out together.

p1010698bird-scarer

We have been listening to bird-scaring cannons going off at intervals every day, from dawn til dusk since the middle of autumn. Wood pigeons do considerable damage to leafy crops such as oil-seed rape.

p1010701view

Bare trees and a see-through hedge

Further up the lane was the sheltered bank of a ditch on which I found a number of tiny plants.  They had begun flowering in the milder weather we had had that week.

p1010702primrose

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) plants

p1010703primrose

Primrose.  This is a ‘thrum-eyed’ primrose flower.  If you look at the centre of the flower you see its long stamens, the short stigma is hidden below.  A ‘pin-eyed’ primrose has a long stigma visible and its short stamens are concealed.  I will see if I can find a ‘pin-eye’ flower so you can compare the two.

p1010704speedwell

Germander Speedwell (Veronica chamaedrys)

p1010705dandelion

Dandelion (Taraxacum agg.)

p1010706red-deadnettle

Red Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)

p1010707tree

An oak tree in a hedgerow. A dead branch has broken and is dangling from the tree.  You cannot see it in this photo but a single track road runs this side of the hedge.

p1010708signpost

The signpost at the end of the lane

Field view
Field view
Field view
Field view

We stood for a while and looked across the fields; we tried to walk a little further towards the village of St James but Richard soon knew he would be too tired if he went any further.  We turned for home.

Our muddy lane
Our muddy lane
Our muddy lane
Our muddy lane
Our muddy lane
Our muddy lane

For many months of the year our lane is covered with a thick layer of mud.  Our cars are perpetually filthy and walking is a messy business!

Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) on our pond.

I know it is spring once I start to see pairs of Mallards on our pond! We have also been visited by our Graylag geese friends and yet again we realise we have failed to clear the the willow and bramble scrub off the island they like to nest on.

I was pleased that my Cymbidium orchids flowered from Christmas until just a week ago.

They had produced seven spikes of flowers altogether, which is the best ever!

Here is a slideshow of the flowers in bloom in my garden during February.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My music choice is ‘Laudate Dominum’ by Mozart and sung by Emma Kirkby.  I have been fortunate to have heard Emma Kirkby sing on two occasions, in recitals held at the church in my mother’s village.

Thanks for visiting!

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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