THE WILD PLANTS OF SOUTHAMPTON HIGH STREET

At the top of a pedestrian subway in Southampton (but not in the High Street).

This little garden has a lawn and leaves and flowers.

If I have a mission, it's to persuade people that every street is a garden. Not has a garden, note; but is one.

My theory is that in every street there are flowers and lawns and trees and . . . it's just a matter of adjusting your sense of scale and looking for them.

Those of you who have been reading Loose and Leafy over the years will be familiar with my posts about street plants. Until now I've gone to towns I already know so I've had good ideas about where to look.

For the free-range gardener,
trees put there by the council don't count.

On Wednesday I was in Southampton. I've been there in the past but not much. I once went to an art exhibition. I accompanied a friend to a shop where they sell exceptionally smelly soaps. I've visited a road which used to be a wharf but is now a long way from water. That's about it.

The main shopping street in Southampton is broad and for half its length traffic free. At one end there's a lumpy entrance you can walk through or round - The Bargate. (Built around 1180). At the other - where the traffic is - a park. In between are the usual City Centre shops, all built since the Second World War. (Southampton was bombed.) Some have doors opening directly onto the street. Others are in arcades. Some of the architecture is very grand and modern. Some is dated and beginning to decay. There were market stalls the day I was there. And a roundabout.

A little urban lawn.
There was a slightly larger patch of grass by a group of benches
but I would have felt awkward asking people to move their feet so I could take its picture.

Time to put my theory to the test. This is a very busy street. Is it also a garden? It didn't look promising. But there's no point in having a theory unless you put it to the test.

Shopping centres where rubbish is collected and pavements forever swept clean can be arid and dull. From that perspective, Southampton High Street definitely looked dull - dull and dry and lacking in green.

When you can;t see much by looking down - look up.
See the tree? One in an arboretum.
Although it looks alone there are bound to be others in streets nearby.
Birds would know.
Indeed I found a big, flowering buddleia down a left-hand turn. Ferns by a down-pipe too.

It was. I struggled to find anything. There is, I realise, little to show. Indeed, at one point I was wondering whether I should conceal the fact that I'd tried or accept I'd failed and admit it; that my theory had bitten the dust.

Smooth sow-thistle (?) by a bus-stop.
(Sonchus olderaceus)

But no! There was a small lawn, a flowerbed and a tree.

Hurray! Southampton High street is - as you see - a garden.

What's more, there were wild animals. Aphids. Ladybirds!

This Harlequin Ladybird  (Harmonia axiridis )
was on the Smooth Sow-Thistle
above.
See greenfly legs sticking out from its mouth?

To a flock of aphids a Harlequin Ladybird is more dangerous than a lion is to a herd of gazelle. It will chomp and keep chomping.

My theory holds. We're short of rain. It's rather hot. Once the pavement is watered and the gutters have been washed through with rain . . . maybe it'll become a 'Botanic' one. Perhaps it'll go in a yellow book!

* * *

The current population of Southampton is around 237,000.

Southampton is in Hampshire in the South of England.

If you live in the UK you can take part in the Ladybird Survey

which has a picture gallery of kinds of ladybirds to look out for on its site.

There's a downloadable Ladybird Identification Guide on their site too.

Here's a link to find out about The Ladybirds of Ireland.

* * *
More Street Plant Posts on Loose and Leafy

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Do You Post About Street Plants?

Here's a post on Hollis' blog - In the Company of Rocks and Plants
 - Urban Botany, Urban Art and the Instagram Effect
And from Amanda at 'The Quiet Walker'
 - Urban Plants at the Town Hall

STOP PRESS

Irrelevant to post but have just come across this Facebook Page of Moths found by BSG Ecology in 2014. Click on the pictures to find their names.

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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OUT ON THE TOWN

One of my mantras - to look up. Another, once you are up - look down.

There are special places I return to over and over. Are the same plants there? Depending on the season, the answer is usually 'yes'; if not the original ones, new ones which have grown from their seeds or their roots. Town plants - the wild kind - are as predictable as their hedgerow cousins.

Another reason for returning is to have another bash at photographing plants which 'didn't come out well first time'. (Sometimes they never do.)

This fern is one of several growing on the outer side of a footbridge over a level crossing. The gates don't stay shut for long and it's exciting to stand by the track and watch trains rattle by so whether from patience, laziness or interest, shoppers usually wait till the barriers go up again. Sometimes there are people in carriages. (It's fun being a passenger looking out at the crowds.) Sometimes its a chain of trucks. Sometimes I too stand and wait but I don't like crowds, view climbing steps as a minor contribution to staying healthy - and like to visit the plants on the bridge.

I've never yet taken a really crisp picture of any of the ferns there. I have to reach the camera out over the brick edge and twist it down or back (safe with handrail so I'm not going to tip over) and focus at an uncomfortably short distance which sacrifices depth of field. (Remember, I'm well-pleased with my camera but I can't change the lens.)

Yesterday was no exception. Slightly fuzzy image. Odd angle. But . . .

The train has just passed and a huge column of pedestrians surges over the track in both directions . . . looking at the ground.

They do, of course, have to make sure not to trip on the rails . . . but it's more than that . . . when not looking in windows or checking phones, people do look down a lot when walking along. I do this too - watch my shoes pop in and out of vision. It can be meditative, give a sense of marching forward and purposefulness. Feet are awfully interesting! Hence my mantra - remember to look up.

Look up - and you'll see ferns.

Look behind things and you'll find leaves and seeds. (Even if they turn out at a jaunty angle!)

Look down .

Even underground . . . well, you already know my fascination with drains!

But don't neglect feet level.

Here under a backstreet tree by a multi-storey car-park among fallen leaves and old twigs - about four inches across . . . it pays as much to look down as up. 

And, if you look up - you may see me looking down! If you do - I'll wave.

_____

Tree Following News.

In my enthusiasm to keep the list up-to-date - I obliterated it. Bother!

But, to me, autumn is the beginning of a new year. It always seems more like new life than new death with everything getting ready for next spring and summer. Always very hopeful. So . . . new list!

Hollis is giving us a really good start with 'Autumn Strategies 1'.

Hollis Marriot blogs from Wyoming in the U.S.A. The terrain is profoundly different from the Dorset land-and-sea-scape I'm familiar with and the plants there often have to use different ways to deal with their environment - one which (it seems to me) is a pretty challenging one. 

Unlike Loose and Leafy - which rambles about discovering things without knowing anything - In the Company of Rocks and Plants gives you proper science too. (Of a very accessible kind.)

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IN THE GRAVEYARD - OCTOBER 2013

As part of my 'wild plants that grow in cities' project I recently visited an urban Churchyard.

When I was younger, I used confidence as a power shield. I wasn't stupid enough to imagine this made me invincible but it worked pretty well.

Hanging in my cupboard over the years, un-needed, underused, it's grown threadbare and moth-eaten. But that day I suddenly felt I could do with it again for when I went through the gate I realised the wooded area behind the Church was full of raised voices. I faltered. It was a good guess, I reckoned, that there would be bodies attached to the voices and they might not be friendly bodies.

I'm not a linguist but the voices sounded Polish. There are a lot of Poles in England nowadays. All the dentists at my local practice are Poles and every one of them has been a darned site better at dentistry than any dentist I've had before. They seem to be remarkably adept at treatment without pain. None the less, however good Polish dental schools are it seemed unlikely that these graveyard woods would be full of Polish dentists haranguing each other so, as I said, I faltered. All I could think of was that these were migrants who hadn't found work and had set up an encampment. Would they be happy to have an English blogger wandering through their dispute? I never found out. For all the time I was there loud voices floated from among the trees but I never approached and they didn't emerge to approach me.

I stood for a moment, should I walk forward? It was the third Churchyard I'd tried in an hour. The others hadn't had graveyards - just tarmac, gravel and well tended flower beds. So I gathered up the tatters of my shredded confidence, drew them round me - and walked on.

Within a few steps, I was, once again, disconcerted. A young couple rose from a grassy area between graves. They seemed to be pulling on their real clothes as firmly as I was tugging at my invisible protection. Forward still? Yes. Why not? I slid my eyes aside and walked purposefully up the slope. Steps. A tomb. Plants growing along the plinth. Great!

I was just about to crouch down to get them in frame when two young drinkers clattered round from the other side with cans and a bicycle. Now what? We greeted each other cordially. I explained what I was doing. They asked. if I would like them to move out of the way. I said all was fine. So they sat chatting with each other while I crawled around with my camera. (That's one of the troubles with plants. They mostly grow on the ground.)

I took my pictures, thanked them (after all, I had intruded on their space) and went back down towards the gate. Should I leave? No!

Skirting the voices among the trees, I found bittersweet (Woody Nightshade) on the edge of the wood.

And fungi near a contoneaster seedling (do you reckon?)

and more fungi. These yellow ones were several inches across. I didn't touch them to find out if they are merely shiny or slimy too.

I'm not going to attempt IDs.

But . . . after photographing more graves and ivy and a sweet chestnut shell . . .

I hurried away for the train back home - full of puzzles, pictures and a cheerful sense that, with a little bit of work - a stitch here, a patch there - my old and tattered cloak of (almost) invincibility could possibly be worn once again with pride.

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WHAT TO EXPECT ON LOOSE AND LEAFY

Hello! It's autumn! And Loose and Leafy is back!

Seasons come and go - and with them readers - so maybe it's a good moment to reaffirm what kinds of posts to expect on the blog.

The top of an ivy-clad elderberry tree. October 8th 2013

Loosely speaking, it's about hedgerow plants and trees. Saying 'Wild Plants' would sound too exotic and too technical and more specialist than it is. Here you will find the very ordinary plants which grow without encouragement along the coast of Dorset in England. The air is warm and sometimes salty so some may not be found further north in the British Isles or in countries with different climates across the world. Hopefully there's a happy contradiction. Those who live in similar areas may feel a warm sense of familiarity with the plants featured - while those living in other zones (colder, hotter, less windy or less sheltered) will get a small taste of what may be for them (for you?) the unusual.

Lichen on the elderberry branch we've been following.
October 8th 2013

But when I speak of 'similar' places, we have to acknowledge this is an especially plant rich area. The first time I came to Dorset I felt I had gone 'abroad'. I had never been to a place with so many plants, so many butterflies or with the kind of cliffs and coastal geology we have here. (After twenty five years in Dorset I reckon I can now say 'we'!) It's a place where fossils lie at our feet and are embedded in our walls and pathways. It's a place where some cliffs are whiter than the more famous ones at Dover and others are bright yellow or a deeply disturbing dark grey. There are quarries and woodlands and seaweed and shellfish and . . . and . . . and . . . !

There are lots of blackberries on the brambles

but their flavour is not good this year.

October 8th 2013

For all that we sometimes get the impression that England is 'full' - that it's almost covered over with cities and streets - there are few large towns within easy reach of the area covered in this blog. Bournemouth/Poole (with a population of around 187,000 on the Dorset/Hampshire border) is the only 'local' conurbation - and that's an hour on the train to the East. To get to Exeter (in Devon) - the nearest big town going west, you have to make an hour-and-a-half's journey by car. (Population about 118,000 - though if you count its wider commuting area the number bumps up to around 500,000). In between, there's part of Devon and much of Dorset. Weymouth, half way along the Dorset coast, has a population of around 65,000. Otherwise, it's small towns and villages everywhere. There are around 415,000 people living in the county (not counting Bournemouth/Poole because it's a unitary authority . . . ). It covers more than 1,024 square miles but I'm not sure how many people in England even know it exists!

So, what will you find if you read Loose and Leafy?

Odd clumps of ragwort are still flowering.

(See the snail on the lower edge of the picture?)

October 8th 2013

You'll find pictures and descriptions of a very, very small part of a wonderful county. And when I say 'very small' - I mean VERY! Most plants I show are within fifteen minutes walk of each other. Sometimes I merely stand still and write a post about what I can see without lifting a foot. (The 'stuck foot' posts.) Over and over, we'll return to the same trees to see their leaves unfurl and fall,

Down on the beach - I think this is a piece of eelgrass.

October 6th 2013

the same beaches to see what's been churned up by the tide,

the same view to see how it changes through the year.

The view we're following.

By placing the ruins of Sandsfoot Castle centre scene it's easy to compare

the seasons of plants and trees through the year.

This photo was taken on the 3rd October 2013 - verily a season of mists and mellow murkiness.

Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) on brambles after a sudden shower.

October 8th 2013

We'll notice pollinators and other insects in the bushes.

Sometimes we'll take a look along the pavements of urban areas, take a trip into Bournemouth or Weymouth to see how plants survive the traffic

There are a surprising number of flowering plants bang in the middle of our towns and cities.

This plant is growing wild on the top of the carpark attached to a large supermarket in the centre of Bournemouth.

July 11th 2013

and, sometimes, we'll find interesting surprises - would you believe that this too is Dorset?

Abbotsbury Sub-tropical Gardens.

October 7th 2013

Watch out for a later post when we'll explore more.

I'm looking forward to your company through the autumn, the winter, the spring and beyond!

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OH ALRIGHT - THERE ARE FLOWERS TOO!

While bemoaning grey days and bleak economics, one can't pretend that green plants and bright flowers aren't great lifters-of-spirits-ers.

There are the obvious ones for the time of year.

Like blackthorn blossoms that open before their leaves arrive.

And I am specially encouraged by flowers which spring open in city streets. Ones which live there despite the odds. (Or, perhaps it's odd that we don't expect them and sometimes don't see them there.)

March 26th 2013

This flower is growing at the top of a flight of underpass steps in Bournemouth city centre. (A city with a population of around 168,000.) It's a Speedwell. Maybe a Common Field-Speedwell (Veronica persica) (which can also be called 'Persian Speedwell' - pretty exotic name as well as pretty flower!).  Or it might be a Green Field-Speedwell (Veronica agrestis). Maybe I'll get a definite ID from iSpot?

March 26th 2013

This is the plant the flower is growing from. As you can see, there are quite a few buds waiting to open.

And between the cobbles of speed bumps in a Weymouth housing estate.

March 31st 2013

Common Whitlowgrass (Erophila verna). Each flower takes up about two square millimeters. These are not growing in a busy road - but dustcarts and cars do drive over them. I doubt (though I haven't stood there to check) that anyone (except me and people who've stopped to ask why I'm crawling around in the road) have noticed they are there.

Oh, and why not

March 31st 2013

notice the daisies? These are growing in an un-trampled area of a park. Unsurprisingly un-trampled because there is one basket ball hoop and one five aside goal. Not entirely inspiring when both are for team sports!

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YOU'LL FIND PLENTY OF FLOWERS ELSEWHERE

March 27th 2013

Tomorrow, changes to state benefits kick in. Many will find they can no longer afford their rent. Homelessness is likely to increase.

Whatever you think about benefits, trying to solve the problems of our national economy by putting more people onto the streets doesn't make sense. At least, I don't think it does.

Easter is not about daffodils. Daffodils are cheerful. They lift our spirits. We can rely on them to pop up each spring. That's one of the reasons we like them. We can count on them to tell us dark times are passing, the sun is on its way.

But Easter? Easter is about the unexpected.

I could show you flowers. But I'm going to show you a city plant instead. A tiny bit of green rammed against a huge city office block. It's to the right of the fat grey pillar. There are more further along.

The changes to benefit may not turn millions onto the street to join this little plant. In a way that's one of the silly things about this situation. The small amounts of money docked from family purses will not, even when put together, solve our national problems so why are we doing it? There's something vindictive about blaming the poor for problems created by people much wealthier than them. But the anxiety in families threatened with poverty and homelessness - their anxiety will be immense.

The next time I go by this huge building with its smart glass and massive paved area - I expect the plant will have gone.

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THE TIGER THAT ATE YOUR DAUGHTER

 A tiger which has just eaten your daughter may not be welcome in your street but, objectively, it's as beautiful as ever it was before it escaped its cage; its stripes are as striking, its coat as shiny and thick. You may feel differently about it now it has turned your family into a ready meal - but that's another matter.

Once an eye is tuned to disregarding the practical, ethical or conventional trappings of street plants, able, for a few moments, not to take into account that they crack tarmac but admire their strength, notice that a tree growing on the top of a building makes an interesting silhouette even though its roots are cracking the chimney and nudging slates from the roof so passers by are in danger of having their heads split open; even if some plants have to be pulled up and some trees taken down; once it's possible to separate what something looks like from what it's doing and whether it should be doing it, all sorts of other things leap into sight as objects of delight and scenes to be appreciated before they are changed.

Ruined castles were once homes but many people like to see them, none the less. Giant cooling towers which pump steam into the air, waste power and dominate the landscape can look impressive when viewed from a train. If we are able to disengage our thoughts about things like these in order to see them, then why not others? Why not grow an internal switch which can be flicked on and off so we can ask ourselves 'what does this look like?' 'what is it doing?' before we ask whether it should it be doing it and whether anything need be done about it?

This picture first shown on my other blog - Message in a Milk Bottle
Coca-Cola Can and Green Plant in Kerb

Much that litters the gutters, rattles and blows against plants already there, has been designed to entice shoppers. Some is the result of years and years of research. Someone has bothered to make it. Tins and bottles are bright and shiny and interestingly shaped. Paper and plastic bags blowing down the street can be like low flying kites until they are rained into sogginess and ready to be swept away. Dustbins and recycling trays can make an exciting percussion when they blow down the road. Even in the night, when they wake us, they can be like drums calling, taking us, in our imagination, into places of adventure and change. It may well be that they knock down the next elderly person that comes in their way. They may tip litter and old bones all over the place - but that doesn't mean they aren't making an interesting noise as they do it.

Does it?

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THE PICTURE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

I realise it's silly to say this picture has changed my life when I took it only yesterday but it has. It's made me realise something I knew already - which doesn't make sense. Perhaps it's consolidated it, provided such a good example of what I mean, what I think, what's completely fundamental to my life, to my way of seeing things, it's like seeing it, realising it, knowing it again for the first time. Maybe all it is is that I now have an example that I can show you so I can say 'This, this is it. Do you see?'

Here is the picture.

Maybe you should take a moment to guess what it is, or reflect on it if you know its identity straight away.

Groundsel. That's what it is. Groundsel in a kerb. Below is a picture of the same plant.

The top left of the plant is what's shown above. In it you can see that the background is blue because it's in the shadow of a kerb and a garden hedge.

So what is the significance of this picture?

One is that it explains why my posts have become a little erratic. Each week I gather so many hedgerow pictures I find it hard to decide what to put on the blog. I'm not weary of hedgerows. It's that I don't want to weary my readers. After several years of Loose and Leafy, I don't want you to say 'Oh no! Not another hawthorn post!' or 'For heaven's sake, we've seen ragwort / chicory / dandelions already. Indeed we've seen them over and over again. Give us a rest!'. This is the trouble with seasons. They tend to come around a lot.

So I've been looking closer - and have become entranced by hoverflies. I'd thought they were all the same. They aren't. They are dramatically different, one from another.

I've been cutting up pictures; looking at wings

and bodies

This is getting nearer to the point. The closer you go, the more you see.

Back to the groundsel. My neighbour (Esther Montgomery) and I have been working on a project about urban wild plants.* I've been looking at the streets. She's been letting plants arrive in her garden by chance - seeing what happens. Of course, everyone knows what happens if you do this; the place silts up with weeds. And that is what has happened. I can see her garden from my window and to distant eyes it is, indeed, a mess. But the longer she leaves it, the more interesting it will be. Weeds need a few years to settle in, find a balance. Maybe they need protecting from bullies like blackberries but, apart from that . . .

In the streets, I've mainly been interested in finding out what's there. There's a lot. Occasionally photographs of these plants have crept into Loose and Leafy posts* but I try not to let this happen too often. I suspect most people want Loose and Leafy to show something rural, blatantly pretty. Why not? Some hardly ever get out of town.

Some people have never seen the sea.

But I sometimes feel that I'm straining at a leash. I want to show you what's where the cars are. What's there by the bins. So far, in the streets, I've mainly been concerned with noting, observing and doing a little loose and leafy cataloguing (and writing about it  of course, but not here ).

Back to the photo. I may be misjudging. I may be too hopeful that others will see through my ground level eyes. I've got so used to admiring the small, the neglected, the generally uprooted, maybe I'm putting too much weight on it. Will you - do you? see beauty in this groundsel? Please don't say, even to yourselves, 'It's all very well in the roadside but I wouldn't want it here.'. Try to set that aside. Imagine you don't know what it is.

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she beautiful?

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Try Stevie Wonder - Isn't she lovely?

Lyrics

* Esther's up to 23,000 words. I have over a thousand pictures - and still climbing. She's a way to go. There will come a moment when I'll need to do some pruning!

*Examples of street plants posts.
Loose and leafy post about plants in a playground.
Loose and leafy post about gutters and drains.

P.S. You might like to know that Janet at Garden 65 has an interesting post which includes a diagram which plots and names the veins in a hoverfly wing - Oxen-born Bees - Fact and Legend