Tag Archives: winter wildflowers

Wild blooms

28 Sunday Feb 2021

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The results are in! After a concerted effort to check as many different local habitats as possible, walking 31.5 miles over 5 days, I managed to find 29 different wildflowers in bloom this week. Two (Ragwort and Smooth sow-thistle) were too distant for good photos; the other 27 feature in this week’s little video. I hope you’re also seeing plenty of flowers in your areas now too.

The 27 are: Alexanders, Barren strawberry, Colt’s-foot, Cow parsley, Cowslip, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Dog’s mercury, Field speedwell, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Opposite-leaved golden-saxifrage, Petty spurge (with little yellow spots of the rust Melampsora euphorbiae), Primrose, Red dead-nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Snowdrop, Spurge laurel (a shrub really but I’m including it), Sweet violet, Three-cornered leek, Wavy bitter-cress, and Winter heliotrope.

Wild in the churchyard

31 Sunday Jan 2021

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I often take a wander through the churchyard of St Augustine’s during my local exercise walks. As this space is purposefully managed to attract wildlife and nurture the environment, it’s always a pleasure to visit, to sit on a bench and listen to the birdsong, to check for what’s growing and blooming. On Thursday’s visit, I looked for wildflowers and was delighted to find my first Snowdrops and Crocuses of the year, as well as a lot of Winter heliotrope, several Primroses, a few Daisies in the grass, and the white-flowered variety of Red valerian.

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Midwinter wildflowers

17 Sunday Jan 2021

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Nature’s resilience amazes me! It’s the middle of winter, we’ve had some very hard frosts and really chilly days as well as torrential rain, yet I’ve still been able to find 25 species of wildflower in bloom this week.

These heroes are Alexanders, Bramble, a garden-escapee Campanula species, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Field speedwell, Gorse, Groundsel, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Mayweed species, Meadow buttercup, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Ragwort, Red valerian, Shepherd’s purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Sweet violet, Wild radish, and Winter heliotrope.

New Year’s Plant Hunt

03 Sunday Jan 2021

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The New Year Plant Hunt is happening again this year, from 1 to 4 January, but participants must, of course, stick to the Covid-19 restrictions in their areas. (In case you’re new to the idea of the Plant Hunt, all the details are on the BSBI website here.) I am taking part, of course, and, as a practice run, I used my meander around local streets and countryside footpaths on New Year’s Eve to see what I could find. It was very chilly, as you’ll see from the ice crystals still on a couple of the flowers, but I was very pleased to find 14 plants still in bloom: Alexanders, Bramble, Common vetch, Daisy, Dandelion, Gorse, Groundsel, Ivy, Knapweed, Primrose, Red clover, Red valerian, Shepherd’s purse, and Winter heliotrope.

355/366 Spring … oh, wait

20 Sunday Dec 2020

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So, no, it’s not spring. It’s only really the beginning of winter and, yet, in three different locations this week I’ve found Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) in flower. I think these glistening wildflowers do bloom quite early in the new year – they’re just even earlier than usual.

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348/366 Cosmeston treasure hunt

13 Sunday Dec 2020

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This was hard work! The paddocks at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park get shaved of all vegetation at least once each year, usually in autumn, and that process happened late this year, just two weeks ago. So, it took me three visits, covering almost every inch of the site, checking the field boundaries in particular, searching for any wildflowers the tractor’s blades might have missed.

I’m actually amazed I managed to find this many species still flowering: Bramble, Carline thistle, Creeping buttercup, Creeping thistle, Daisy, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Oxeye daisy, Sweet violet, Wild radish, Winter heliotrope, and Yellow-wort.

341/366 Blooming on the Barrage

06 Sunday Dec 2020

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During Tuesday’s walk across the Barrage in Cardiff Bay, I searched for as many wildflowers in bloom as I could find. I spotted just ten species, but it’s quite a small area and the grounds are frequently cut and strimmed by the Council’s grounds staff, so I thought that was a good number for the time of year. And the list included a few species I don’t see elsewhere, like Viper’s-bugloss (very stunted from the too-frequent cutting), Black nightshade, and Common stork’s-bill.

The wildflowers in the video are Daisy (Bellis perennis), Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale agg.), Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium), Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), Nipplewort (Lapsana communis), Black nightshade (Solanum nigrum), Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), Smooth sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), and Hoary mustard (Hirschfeldia incana).

54/366 Winter 29!

23 Sunday Feb 2020

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Despite the appalling weather we’ve been having, the natural world obviously feels the coming of Spring as this week I’ve found 29 wildflowers in bloom, including firsts of Coltsfoot, Common corn salad, Spotted medick and Wood anemone.

The full list is: Alexanders, Coltsfoot, Common comfrey, Common cornsalad, Common field speedwell, Cow parsley, Creeping buttercup, Daisy, Dandelion, Forget-me-not, Gorse, Groundsel, Hairy bitter-cress, Herb Robert, Hogweed, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Lesser celandine, Nipplewort, Oxeye daisy, Primrose, Red dead nettle, Red valerian, Shepherd’s-purse, Smooth sow-thistle, Snowdrop, Spotted medick, Sun spurge, Winter heliotrope and Wood anemone.

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33/366 This week in wildflowers

02 Sunday Feb 2020

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These are the blooming wildflowers I was able to find during yesterday’s and today’s local meanders, an impressive total of 21, due to the continuing mild weather we have been experiencing this winter.

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They are: Bramble; Comfrey – a nice surprise; Common ragwort (with a bonus Marmalade hoverfly, my first for 2020); a Crocus (probably planted, now wild); Daisy; one of the Dandelions; Gorse; Groundsel; Hairy bittercress; a female Hazel flower – a tree, I know, but I couldn’t resist the dash of pink; Herb Robert; Ivy-leaved toadflax; Lesser celandine – quite a lot of these flowering now; perhaps one of the Hawkweeds; Primrose; Red valerian; Snowdrop; one of the Sowthistles; a Speedwell species, possible Field Speedwell; an umbellifer; and the pretty pink of Winter heliotrope.

5/366 Musk mallow

05 Sunday Jan 2020

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This Musk mallow (Malva moschata) must be the prettiest wildflower I’ve found still in bloom so far this year.

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They can usually be found in dry places, like ‘chalk pastures, roadsides, churchyards and old quarries’, according to my Flora Botanica: this one was on a roadside verge next to Grangemoor Park, a former rubbish dump now park.

Plantlife’s website has some fascinating snippets about this pretty plant. Did you know …

  • The ancient Greeks used musk mallow to decorate friends’ graves.
  • Musk mallow was once an ingredient in soothing cough syrups and ointments, and it was also valued as an aphrodisiac!
  • In the Victorian “Language of Flowers” it is said to be a symbol of ‘consumed by love’, persuasion, and weakness.
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Can you spot the itsy-bitsy spider?