LOOSE AND LEAFY in DORSET: SUCCULENTS

Showing posts with label SUCCULENTS. Show all posts

Monday, 14 September 2015

BUNGING IN SOME STREET PLANTS

Car with carrier on roof, and a bus, beside bench where plants found.

I was stropping around on the promenade in Minehead (Somerset) aggrieved because sea-side fish and chips should be the best - crispy batter, tasty fish - and mine wasn't (soggy, under-cooked, thick and stodgy batter, tasteless and distasteful fish) when I decided to sit on a bench where I could look at the wall which obscured the sea.

No-one was smiling much. I'd come up from the beach where a young man had been looking at his phone while he explained to a bored toddler in his charge that children are supposed to enjoy playing with the sand because that's what little children should do and that said little child shouldn't start climbing the steps back to the promenade in an endeavour to escape all this boredom . . . and went to sit on this bench.

Small, green succulent growing between wooden slats of bench

For a sea-shaped bench it was surprisingly comfortable. I didn't mind sitting on wooden waves - especially when I noticed they were harbouring a veritable garden of little plants. The light was failing so pictures of the plants were mostly blurred - and I had to hurry because other people wanted to sit on the bench too and were looking on bemused because I'd got off it and was pointing my camera into it.

Grey toadstool growing between wooden slats of bench by the sea

Coprinus

But if the sun had been shining and I had had more time - you too would have been wowed by the variety there.

Street plants are everywhere. We even sit on them!

Here's a toadstool growing between the slats of the same bench.

Silhouette of plant in front of lighted roof of University Press, Oxford

And another time this summer . . . while walking down a street beside the Oxford University Press (in Oxford) in the dark (I walk in sunshine some times) I saw this plant perched right up on the roof. If it hadn't been dark, if the lights inside hadn't been on, if the roof hadn't been made of glass - I doubt I would even have noticed it. But there it was. Lonely but proud.

Dotted Loosestrife with bright yellow flowers against fence by gate

Dotted Loosestrife - Lysimachia punctata

And to prove I do sometimes come out in proper daylight - here's a Dotted Loosestrife that invited itself to live beside someone's garden gate. A garden isn't a street - but this is a plant that had wandered in from the street so I reckon it counts.

And this isn't a street plant post - in the sense that on the 21st of alternate months I invite you to search for wild plants in the roads where you live - up on roofs, pressed against fences, lurking in curbs and hanging out on walls. But once I'd seen these I didn't want to lose track of them so I've posted them now.

The next Street Plant Post with a Link Box will be on 21st of October.

Between now and then there'll be a

Standing Still Link Box (Stuck-Foot posts)

on 21st of this month - September 2015.

Over the next weeks my summer hectic-ness will be winding to an end and I'll be keeping up properly with posts so they coincide with their boxes. It's been a daft time. Thank you all for bearing with me!

ID with advice (as usual!) from iSpot.

Sunday, 21 September 2014

THERE'S URBAN AND THERE'S URBAN

I have the unfortunate habit of setting out to take photos of plants when it's just about to rain, cloud over, turn into night-time or glare in the unfortunate way which dots white patches all over the place. Today's nigh-on fiasco was to go to the sea when the weather was wondering whether how much mist to through over the scene.

Such is life. Such is seizing the moment. It's often quite random the one you are free to seize.

And I didn't really chose this road either. It was where I happened to be when I looked to see what there was. In a way, the less promising the start, the more satisfying the conclusion.

Some kind of Sow Thistle?

Take the picture above. See the bollards on the pavement? (Over the road on the right.) I crossed to them and walked along beside the fence as far as the bend - the space of three lamposts. All the plants in this post were found along that span. In other words, they are in view - but you'd hardly know if you didn't look. This sow thistle, was about three inches high and caused enough of a blodge on the pristine brick pavement to stand out for a starter and draw me over. Notice the area is litter-free? That's often a bad sign when you're looking for street plants. But I was in luck. Not only is this sow thistle there but it has neighbours. There's some grass, and two others plants - one of them of the same ground-hugging kind as you'll see below.

People interested in sport and spectacle may remember that the sailing events for the 'London' Olympics of 2012 took place in Dorset and were based at the National Sailing Academy on Portland which had been developed with just that in mind.

I don't know what this plant is.
You can guess its size by comparing it with the bricks of the pavement and the small stone.

This road near The Academy is crisp and clear with nothing there beyond what's necessary. A road for cars. A pavement for people. Places for boats to spend the winter. Places for boats to be built and repaired. Warehouses. New. Stark.

(Well, not so new now - which shows how starkly maintained it is.)

It was tempting to brighten this picture to show the red pods more clearly.
But a grey day is a grey day.

There used to be huge oil tanks along this edge of Portland. They were dug up, knocked over, bashed out of the way and the ground levelled for the kinds of industries which take place in 'units'.

Some have plantings of grasses and other tough plants. I'm not sure if these clumps are truly wild or escapees.

The plant on the right) is Knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare agg.). It was growing along the ground, away from the long blue fence, then standing upright. The segments of its stem looked as if they'd been plugged together in a row. It has pretty little pink flowers which are even less visible than the plant was when I started along the road.

(The clumps of something green along the building opposite are intentional plantings.)

It's not a flowery road. It's not a very flowery time of year. But here's another sow thistle; this time taller - with a yellow flower and white and fluffy wind-powered seeds and brightly coloured leaves.

And more flowers still?

Yes. By the last lampost before the road curves right . . .
The world seems full of different kinds of daisy-like flowers. I don't yet know what this is. Do you? (Take a look at its feathery leaves.)

Street Plant Bloggers
#urbanwildplants

From the long view - not much in the way of wild flowers.

Close to . . . ? Of course - they are always there!

* * *

Do you write about street plants on your blog? Join other Loose and Leafy readers by linking with your discoveries. See the Street Plant Bloggers page for more info.

For the September Street Plant Link Box
Click here.

Saturday, 31 March 2012

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY GARDEN

Let me introduce you to my garden. It’s easy care and forever surprising. Indeed, it needs no care at all. It decides for itself what's in it and I never lift a finger to help. I never water. I never pull out weeds - for there are no weeds to pull.

But don’t think it is perfection. By no means. The air is often dreadful. There few places in it I would want to sit. Other people sometimes interfere with the plants; one minute they are there, then suddenly, they are gone. When this happens, it can be disappointing. Worse than that, I can feel a little heart tug. But there’s always a good supply of new ones. Part of the fun is to seek them out and choose them; to note them, peer at and appreciate them. And I always, always, have a little glow of satisfaction when I visit my garden - for it is secret. Nobody visits but me. Hardly anyone even knows it exists. Until today, that is, for I’m telling you now! But there will still be an element of mystery because it covers such a large area it’s difficult to discern and its borders are fluid. I doubt if anyone who reads this blog would be able to find a single plant in it.

So - let me introduce you to my garden, my garden of the streets - and a little of what it’s like in March

Here are a couple of lawns.

A small clump of wild grass growing at the edge of stone steps to building.

March 29th 2012

I have no idea how many people pass this little lawn during the course of the day but it's set in the side of steps up to a commercial building.

Tiny tuft of grass in earth caught in drainage grid in road gutter by yellow line.

February 29th 2012
(I know that's not March -
but it's only one day out. It didn't change much overnight!)

And here is another. Durable. Hard wearing. No mowing needed. Tolerates drought, flood, full sunshine and shade.

It’s a good time for flowers. There have been some in the winter months; I have sought them out and I’ll return to them. But they've grown old and dusty and I expect you’d like to see new-leafed, freshly opened ones just now.

Dandelions growing by fencing which protects the forecourt of derelict pub.

March 30th 2012
The dandelion at the front of the picture is clear to see - but it's not alone. There's one with two flowers beyond. Can you see that one? And there are many in the wider fore-court behind me. It belongs to a pub which was closed a few years ago after the river next to it flooded the cellars. It's deteriorated much since then.

Ivy Leafed Toadflax growing in wall beside car park.

March 30th 2012
Ivy-leafed Toad Flax. In the wall of a large car-park.

Dandelions really are beginning to assert themselves. Although my garden is a street one (a garden of urban wild plants) if people leave their own gardens untended, I reckon the plants which grow there can be included in mine too. These are 'shared' plants.

Dandelion flower at the street edge of an untended garden.

March 28th 2012

Like this dandelion.

I have a selection of rockeries. In some, the plants are very small.

Tiny White Flowers grow in the gaps between cobbles on a speed bump.

March 28th 2012

These ones (above) have to be small or lorries would squash them. They are between the cobbles in the speed bump below. A dustcart had driven over it in both directions a moment before taking this picture.

Speed bump. There are lots of tiny plants between the cobbles.

March 28th 2012

The orange sticks are cigarette buts. That will help with scale.

Given that I have not seen anyone else crawling about on pavements, on the steps to public buildings or in the middles of roads, I suspect looking for these plants and admiring them is a minority interest. And I doubt our streets would be as safe as they are if lots of people took it up. But until I started to look out for urban wild plants, I hadn't realised how many there are to miss!

Tiny succulent plant grows through crack in stone step.

March 29th 2012

There are succulents too. These little ones will grow into a clump over the crack at the side of the step.

March 28th 2012

Bushes cut down last year are reasserting themselves.

This buddleia will grow substantially throughout the summer and will probably flower.

March 30th 2012

This is the bud to watch. Below is the place where it is.

Buds on the trees are beginning to bulk and green.

View between road bridge and footbridge, showing railway below.

March 30th 2012

So, there you have it - a garden with lawns and flowering borders; rockeries, bushes and trees. All are free and free living. People walk through this garden every day. Maybe they notice some of its elements. Maybe they don't. Maybe they chose special plants themselves, perhaps without even realising it. I think this is most likely to happen with trees. Even those with only a subliminal awareness of the urban wild will mark the difference between winter and summer, no-leaves then, suddenly, leaves - a time of sweaty offices and ice-creams at weekends.

Do you have an urban garden?

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