SWEET PEAS AND NETTLES

There are always surprises. The absence of summer is one. There's been been heat. Yes. (Rather a lot.) It's been dry. Yes. (Too dry.)

But in Loose and Leafy terms we've leapt from spring to autumn in one bound. Which I don't mind because autumn is my favourite time of year. Autumn in the midst of summer. We've had some rain. (If only it hadn't come all at once and as fast as it could and all concentrated in an hour.) Some freshening breezes would be welcome now.

This recent and sudden and explosive rain has battered haws out of the May Trees. The ground is spattered with them - brown and unripe.

It has knocked down elderberries. See the gaps? Fortunately, there are many left. It has beaten up convolvulus leaves and mangled chicory petals . . . but has also, somehow, released the butterflies. They are all over the place. Yesterday I saw a dragon fly.

There are other surprises. Surprises which come every year but which I forget in between.

Like the way garden plants creep into hedgerows and tangle with the nettles. The hedges are high and often on top of a bank. I'm not always sure which plants have worked their way up from tended gardens and which have self seeded - or are the remnants of gardens where houses once were but were demolished in the last century.

Here are sweet peas climbing above the nettles. See their pods?

Click to enlarge if you'd like to find the fly!

I went back to find 'my blackberry' - the one we saw a bee on. The bit of grass I'd tied to a branch to mark the place had fallen off or . . . or . . . the branch it was tied to had itself vanished. Maybe it got in someone's way. Maybe the rain was briefly so heavy it drooped into the bushes.




I took photographs where I thought it almost was then, when I got home, spent ages comparing the new picture with the one I'd taken last week. Nope. Not the same branch. Pretty though. And the surprise - a fly on a flower.

It often happens. You take a picture. You take it home. You put it on a screen - and there, bang in the middle - something you hadn't seen. Something you'd never have seen otherwise.

These are the joys of the ignoramus. There's nothing wrong with knowing. Of course not. I'm unduly proud when I 'know' something or learn something new; but as I nearly always everything within five minutes of finding it out - the world's forever full of surprise. Knowing nothing can be . . . well, I find it fun.

* * *

You know the Stuck Foot Posts . . . and the Street Plant Posts?

Both are occasional.

Stuck-Foots are thoughtful. Street-Plants are adventures.

Both are fun.

Do you write them too? In case you'd like an easy way to let others know about yours . . .

In addition to the regular link box for Tree Following (on the 7th of every month)

There will be link boxes on Loose and Leafy several times a year for these other kinds of post. If we put dates beside the entries they can be round-ups rather than the regular kind of meme.

Link Box Dates for Stuck Foot Posts
November     21st - 25th
January         21st - 25th
March           21st - 25th
May              21st - 25th
July               21st - 25th
September     21st - 25th
November     21st - 25th

Link Box Dates for Street Plant Posts
December    21st - 25th
February      21st - 25th
April            21st - 25th
June             21st - 25th
August         21st - 25th
October        21st - 25thDecember    21st - 25th.

Both kinds of post now have their own pages for information. They give dates for link boxes, an opportunity to ask for reminders and an invitation to include your blog in a list of bloggers who make occasional Stuck Foot or Street Plant posts.

Stuck Foot Bloggers

Street Plant Bloggers

Do let me know if you'd like your name to be added to the list. (Leave a comment or email me at looseandleafy@googlemail.com)

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ELDERBERRY - TREE FOLLOWING

The Elderberry tree I may switch to.           Februay 11th 2014

I first began following 'my' hedgerow elderberry tree in December 2008. In theory, I later moved on to a sycamore (about which more in another post). In practice, I've never left it.

This was before I ever thought others might want to do something similar and, with what may seem an odd sort of precision, I didn't follow the tree so much as a point on it where several leaf buds were forming - just that one place. Before long, it was impossible to see it. In the autumn, when the tree shed its leaves, there it was again. In the meantime, I was following something almost invisible and in shade. So I switched to another leaf bud on another tree in the same little group - which was also often in shade and produced the smallest leaves on the whole tree. The next year, the leaves there were a bit bigger. Then the branch broke off. Hmm.

Ivy berries on the original elderberry tree.
February 13th 2014

And, over this time, I found myself more hooked on the ivy that is gradually taking it over than the tree itself. Ivy, it turns out, is absolutely gripping. Its flowers have no petals. In the autumn they look like fireworks. Hoverflies can't leave them alone. The berries change from green to brown to black - then they drop seeds. How many of us have thought to look for ivy seeds? Sometimes, when my head is in a bush, people stop and ask me what I'm looking at. If it's a butterfly they are pleased. If it's a hole in a leaf, less so. If it's ivy flowers - they are stunned. Hardly anyone, it seems, has ever thought to look out for ivy flowers. That they don't even look like flowers adds to the . . . well, it's like being in a detective story.

And I've been hooked by the lichen on it too - lichen which is sometimes orange and sometimes yellow and sometimes green - depending on the weather.

Because there is more light around the new elderberry,
I'd be following 'new' plants beneath it too.   Feb. 16th 2014

Meanwhile, the elderberry itself goes under-observed. So, this year, I'm thinking I might 'do' elderberry again - but a tree which is better lit and less ivy clad. With this tree, we may have more of a chance of seeing flowers before they are lopped off by the machines which the council sends to keep branches back from the path. Of course, branches may fall off of their own accord. This is not a new and supple tree. But we've had such strong winds recently and this tree is so very exposed, I'm hoping anything naturally loose will already have fallen off.

We'd see the flowers.

We'd see the berries.

Lichen and leaf shoots on the 'new' elderberry tree.           February 16th 2014

Not that I'll be able to resist the lichen.

We'll see.

* * *

To find out about tree following, read the first post in this series. Holm Oak - Quercus ilex - Tree Following.

If you too will be following a tree this year, do add your name and blog into the linky box below. At the moment, we're simply building a list of people taking part. (For the growing list - see the Tree Following page at the top of the blog.)

If you have already added your name to the list and now have a tree-following post to announce - use the linky for that too. Come the beginning of March, we'll have a formal tape-cutting post. After that, we'll have a linky box once a month. For the moment though, I'm putting a new one at the end of every post so there are lots of opportunities for people to join in.

I'm Following a Tree

If you would like to use the Tree Following motif, feel free to use it on your blog.

Janet at Plantaliscious has introduced her hawthorn. You can read about it in her post Juggling with Trees
And read about Lucy's Common Alder on her blog Alder & Ash.
And at Flighty's Plot - What Willow?
To see the growing list of Tree Followers - click here.
Duncan is reviving his blog Duncan's Wild Garden specially to follow a tree!

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The current linky box is with the post for February 21st.

DON'T MOVE A FOOT

On the turn of our journey, when we were leaving Newcastle-upon-Tyne to come south, I saw a Black Headed Gull with its head already turned grey. Very soon, it would be winter-white, a black spot behind each eye to keep its name in.

Elderberries matured while

 we were on our travels
and are already

dropping from

their umbrella-rib frames.

The first breath of autumn.

The hedgerows which were solid green on our way up the country were mottled with early yellows by the time we came back the other way. I hadn't intended to post for another couple of weeks but the birth of autumn cannot go un-noticed.

How, though, to limit myself?

There's lots to be done on a return and I hadn't planned to write a post for Loose and Leafy until around the 17th September.

So I hit on an idea. Walk a short way from my house. Stand in one spot. Don't move a foot. Stick my nose in a hedge, see what can be seen, take photos - go home.

Result? Lots of wobbly photos from unfortunate angles in an awkward light.

Second result. I tried it in several places, forgetting that lots of ones add up to . .

. . . Never mind. I've set myself a trend.

All the photos in this post were taken within a four minute span with my feet stuck in one spot. Neither pottering nor re-positioning allowed! (11:10 - 11:14, Sunday 28th August 2011.)

At first sight, the bushes seem little more than a splurge.

I used to think these were
Ground Elder seed-heads
 until Mag of Ragbag
tactfully put me right.

But when you re-focus your perception - here are Alexanders seeds.

The tattyness of these blackberries first drew me to this spot. Walking on after my foot-stuck-photo-shoot, I found there are plenty of fine and juicy ones near by, though their flavour seems mostly to be adequate rather than fantastic.

Haws - the fruit of Hawthorn.
You can see what the flowers looked like
in the spring in the post
Lights and Bells, Mists and Flowers. 

Haws can be overwhelming. I find them vulgar in over-profusion - and, this year, they are definitely over-profuse to my eyes. I'd even say I am repelled by them. It's the same with caterpillars. One is interesting, possibly pretty - but in a writhing bunch they are less appealing. However, taking haws branch by branch, they are beautiful berries - red and shining.

Never neglect the ground.

All sorts of bits and bobs in there and, tipping us ahead to Christmas . . .

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shines the Ivy.

Note - There's a picture of a Black Headed Gull in winter

if you scroll down this page of news  from the Portland Bird Observatory.