STREET PLANTS

Mexican Fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) beside downpipe in garage forecourt.

June 12th 2014

Before the post proper - a big thanks to everyone who took part in the June Tree Following update - whether by writing about their own trees or by reading the posts of others. The characters of the trees (and to some extent of those following their progress) is emerging as the year passes - and it's fascinating. Some trees have found their identities or had them revised; it's easier to work out what they are once leaves have opened. Maybe by starting with bare branches we will all find it easier to identify trees in winter? Some trees have run into trouble. Some have burst out of iffy patches. Over the summer months we will need to become even more efficient as detectives - what is happening when nothing seems to be happening between now and autumn? I anticipate our July and August posts will be amongst the most creative and revelatory.

To see the branches of 'my' tree, I have to crane my head back - it's so very tall. So this week I thought I'd look down. The hedgerows seem high at present - with fennel being feathery and the umbeliferous flowers seeming like inside out umbrellas (except prettier). It's all a big green blur, for all the little flowers growing in the big plants' shade.

Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)
June 15th 2014

So I looked to the streets - or, more particularly, to the car-parks, where plants are more likely to grow separately. Here, they are more distinct. And astonishing. And pretty.

And not just pretty (like the Erigeron (Mexican Fleabane)) above. Resilient and surprising like this Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare) behind the bins in a car-park recycling area.

Poppy by building site. See the buddleia to its left? Opportunists both!
June 15th 2014

Where there's a new building, there's often more new building in progress nearby. It's how towns spread! On the edge of the car-park belonging to a three-year-old supermarket, something else is being built. I don't know what. The ground is cleared. Machines are there. And pipes and chain link fences all around. Where flowers grow.

Faded beauty!
There were newly opened poppies too, bright red and with unblemished petals. But in this flower we see the seed pod forming. It's like watching a caterpillar turn into a chrysalis - the old and new entangled. But it's not just that..

Aren't the curls and dents, and wrinkles just as beautiful as the flat blandness of a young flower. (Say yes!) I'd be hard put to it to tell one new poppy from another. But once they begin to die - that's where their individual character creeps in. Or leaps in, in the case of a poppy, because the petal stage doesn't last long! 

For more Loose and Leafy posts about plants about town - click HERE.

For more about Tree Following - click HERE.

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PORTLAND BILL IN WINTER

Rain.

That's what this winter's been about round here.

And wind.

And high tides.

And floods.

So I've been indoors and, on the whole, have kept away from the cliffs and the sea (they could be lethal) and from the rain which would finish off my camera.

Thus - silence.

Here and there, hawthorn leaves open, alexander seedlings spring up and . . . and I expect all sorts of other things are happening which would be interesting to notice if I could see anything beyond my streaming spectacles. Even when the rain takes a rain break the wind carries on and everything not set in stone keeps dancing. Nothing is still. So it's all a spin of water here and everything's blurred and not very blog-friendly.

But I wouldn't want you to think I've dissolved or have been swept out to sea - so I went to look at Portland Bill. My intention had been to walk between the rock gullies where plants are stiff and protected from the wind. I've been there before. It's interesting to see change . . . or lack of it . . . Except on that side of the headland the sea was rougher than usual and I was scared. It wasn't going to leap over and 'get' me - not at that moment, it wasn't - but there are big rocks missing from the sea, shattered by recent storms. I didn't want to go missing from land. The waves coming in were fifteen or twenty foot high. A ship was ploughing along, dipping in and out of view as it hit even bigger waves further out.

Erigeron glaucus  (I think).
(I'll take its picture again when it flowers.)

Being a coward . . . I pottered round to the other side of the lighthouse where everything was much calmer than it often is in winter and found . . . not a lot.

Which isn't quite true. There probably was a lot but I didn't stay long enough to do much more than photograph a few plants a million times so something would be in focus - and come home.

Proves I exist though!

* * *

Burdock (Arctium)

PHOTOS TAKEN on 28th January 2013

Portland Bill is the southernmost tip of the Island of Portland - which isn't quite an island and which is joined to the mainland of Dorset by a causeway and a bridge.

Other Portland Posts on Loose and Leafy:

The Last Plant in England

Lights and Bells, Mists and Flowers

Sea and Sea and Rocks and Stones and Sea

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THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

I've been invited to go on a trek. My neighbour, Esther Montgomery, has suggested I go on a camping holiday, travelling due North through England and Scotland and coming back on the other side (more or less). There will be Esther, her husband, their two children . . . and me! You can see the route plan on her blog - here.

How can one resist? The down-side is that I won't be able to blog while we are gone and, by the time we return, the season will be turning and pictures I have been accumulating for particular posts will have become dated and irrelevant. That's the trouble with a plant blog - you can't put nature on hold!

But I don't want to abandon some of these topics so here are some pictures that were intended for a couple of urban posts.

First, plants which grow along the edge of the pavement and the drop into the water of Weymouth Harbour. 

In the foreground is the edge of the pavement. The concrete path beyond it is a pontoon where boats moor while waiting for the bridge to lift so they can get into the inner harbour without having their masts lopped! Beyond that is the water of the harbour itself.

It always astonishes me that plants can grow (and flower!) in such inhospitable places. There's no visible earth. There's traffic on one side, boats on the other. (The engines of some boats can be very fumey when they are start up and turn towards the sea.) The wind can be strong along here and there's salt in the air.

The blue is a pipe going down from a tap. You can see the tap itself on my other blog-
Message in a Milk Bottle - TAP.

Is there anywhere Buddleia will not grow?

Where plants have no hold - moss takes its chance.

And, down in the gap . . . a leaf floats by.

Below the life-belt case .

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I had an inland-urban post in line too. Pavements made from bricks have become common - and plants are glad of the cracks between them.

Never under-estimate grass!

Some ubiquitous plants don't like to be trodden on.

There can be great variety at the foot of a wall where residents refuse to 'weed'.

Grasses come in many forms. Hurray!

Don't forget to look close-up! The patterns and textures can be impressive.

* * *

Alright, I know that, however impressed I am that so many plants are able to get their feet into almost impossible places

 . . .  most who read Loose and Leafy like to see colour and countryside. Here is a picture which got away when I wrote the post about the under-side of flowers.

I'll be back in September . . . around the 16th I expect.

Have a good August everyone.

Lucy

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