PLANTS ON THE WALLS - SANDSFOOT CASTLE IN DORSET

Near where I live there's a castle. Well, more than one. There's Corfe Castle (which I've written about) and there's Portland Castle (which I haven't).

The definition of a castle is oblique. Maiden Castle (also not far away) is a series of grass covered ramparts where Celts held out against Romans (and lost). There's a mini version too - where I came across a thistle. And there's Sandsfoot - a little ruin of a castle built first as part of Henry VIII's coastal defences. It's mostly fallen into the sea but a couple of year's ago it was stuck together a bit and made safe and a wooden bridge built so you can pretend you are crossing the moat that isn't there on a drawbridge . . . and a two-person balcony where you can stand with a friend and look out at the sea and hope the cliff won't crumble until you've gone home.

And that's where I went to look at plants.

Now, if I owned a castle, I wouldn't want flowers growing out from the stones. Heavens! The fuss people make about a little ivy on a grotty garden wall. And this is history!

How about Red Valerian growing on your roof?

Or leaves peeping over the lintel? (Sometimes I think this is buddleia - then I don't.)

This fleshy little plant may appear to be growing at the foot of a wall but no. It's nestling in the unevenness between the large stones from which the castle is built.

If the walls of my house were rickety with age, so rickety the upper floor had already given way, I wouldn't put sacks of earth along them and try to grow grass there.

But that's what happened when the castle was 'done up'. The grass died.

Other plants have taken their place.

It's getting late in the summer so they're dying too. Turning without moving (in a stuck foot kind of way) I look back under the arch of the balcony to see them.

There's a hole up the middle of the castle; a square, empty space. You can look down into the remains of the basement and up at the sky through the non-existent roof. And you can admire flowers growing in high, broken corners and window spaces.

(I unstuck my foot so see these.)

Plantain. Clover. And a bramble.

(Note to myself. Go back to the foot of the cliff before winter storms crack more of it away - and look up.)

(And down into rock pools.)

(We've been there before. We found a dead goose lying on a bed of seaweed. And I've been observing the castle as the seasons have come and gone.)

For more about 'Stuck Foot' posts - and an invitation to join in.
For the September Tree Following Link Box

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FEBRUARY PRICKLES RE-VISITED AND REVISED

Two problems crop up this time every year. One is . . . well, not exactly a problem - but intriguing; to tell hawthorn and blackthorn apart.

The upright twig on the right is clearly blackthorn but
. . . although I think there is hawthorn coming in from the left,
I'm really not certain.
Behind them, flowering prettily
(as it does all year)
is gorse.

For the most part, it’s easy. But there are bushes, here and there, where I get it wrong. Not that, in the course of world history this really matters - it’s just that the distinctive blackthorn thorns aren’t evenly spread and until the leaves / blossom begin to appear . . . I can stand in front of a bush feeling very silly and cross with myself.

A hawthorn leaf bud breaks open.
See the short thorns?
But blackthorns have a lot of short thorns too - even though the
the remarkably long ones are what we are likely to look for.

The easy bit is that hawthorn produces its leaves before its blossom - and that’s what’s beginning to happen. 

Whereas blackthorn blossoms before its leaves break - which is not what’s beginning to happen yet.

The other problem (and I always feel a bit uneasy about this) is that, for some readers, hawthorn and blackthorn are special trees. It’s not that I object to people finding them special - it’s just that I sometimes think we go adrift from each other at this time of year. I am specially impressed by blackthorn. Hawthorn’s ok too. But I don’t consider either of them to be magical - not in the really 'magic' kind of way. And I suppose I get defensive on behalf of other trees and plants that I keep an eye on for this blog. The elderberry and sycamore,  field maples (if that’s what they are) and the miles of blackberries and alexanders . . . and, later on, dandelions and viper’s bugloss . . . even the seaweed! - I’m sticking up for them. They are as ‘special’ to me as May and Sloe. And gorse of course.

The tree on the right is one I plant to come back to later in the year.
Beyond it is Sandsfoot Castle - built during the reign of HenryVIII.

* * *

About ‘Tree Following’.

I’ve put a box in the sidebar for this. If you’d like to let me know when you post about ‘your’ tree (don’t assume I know automatically because I follow your blog - I might miss it) I’ll put a note there.

Further down the page, there's a blog list of people with trees they are paying special attention to. This updates itself automatically whenever a post is posted so it doesn't take any notice of content - it's simply the  latest on that blog, whether it's anything to do with trees or not!

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All photos taken today, February 25th 2012, except for the hawthorn leaf - which was yesterday.

EROSION, SLEEVES AND STINKINGLY DISGUSTING TOMATOES

My brain has caught The Blight. When Easy Gardener asked if I put sleeves on tomato branches, I thought, for a whole day, this was a horticultural device I should have known about. I was imagining spores from Far Side of Fifty's next door potato field floating into Esther's Garden, slipping from the fabric unfulfilled and wafting off to do their damage elsewhere. And I chastised myself for ignorance. If only, I thought, the tomatoes had been wearing sleeves! Then, I thought, they wouldn't have looked like this. Meanwhile, Mr McGregor's Daughter and Rosa Sinensis were politely averting their eyes and taking note of Sandsfoot Castle. Although I'm glad it isn't over-run with tourists, I'm not sure buddleia roots between its stones are good for it either. But there is (I'm sorry Rosa!) another Henry Vlll Castle (preserved and gift-shoppized) sitting on the opposite side of Portland Harbour. It even has a roof. You can pay to go round and look at the kitchens and the armour and take part in its 'events'. Maybe Sandsfoot is a lost cause and the sea will simply take it. Erosion is eating long sections of the British Coastline. Sea defences tend to shift the problem; not solve it. These steps (which keep company with the fallen rocks and trees and stones below) seem as forlorn to me as Ceres' sleeves. There are sections of fallen brick wall down there too. (Ah! Yes! Ceres and her sleeves. She's very cross with me. She says they aren't 'sleeves' - they are 'arm warmers' - and if I had said 'arm warmers' in the first place, everyone would have known what I was talking about. For my part, I think 'arm warmers' describes 'sleeves' very well.) I shall scatter photos of the 'not-so-good' tomatoes and their leaves decoratively around the page. (Mr McGregor's Daughter, you really may prefer to shut your eyes.)