Tag: Haw

September 3rd – Beauty is often found in unexpected places, and unexpected circumstances. Like a bad penny today, I pitched up again in South Wigston. This station – no more than a suburban halt, really – has always been a station I’d hated. No information system, little shelter, grim and fore bidding in the dark. And very, very cold in winter. Yet, this year, something strange happened. I discovered beauty here. I started to study the patch of scrub between the ramp and platform on the northbound side way back in spring, when it started to show a remarkable diversity of flowers. Untended, it seems to have been subject to some form of guerrilla planting. As the seasons have advanced, I’d spotted more stuff going on in this patch of scrub, which I feel sure I’m the only person ever to have noticed. It’s enchanting.
Today I found myself studying it again, at 8:45 on a misty, yet hazily sunny autumn morning. The fruiting has started in earnest. Haws, Hips, and catoniaster (the blackbirds go nuts for those bright orange berries) mingled with teasels, snails and cobwebs to make an autumnal tableaux that astounded and transfixed me.
Sometimes, I think I must be the only person in the world who gets excited about this stuff.

Setember 10th – I believe in random acts of kindness. I also believe in random acts of guerrilla planting. Myself and people who know me, at this time of year, engage in collecting the seeds and fruits of deciduous trees and shrubs – acorns, sycamore seeds, beech nuts, sloes, haws and so on – then spread them randomly on thin hedgerows, scrubs and wasteland. I’ve spread patches of cowslip on Clayhanger common, scattered wildflower seeds down the Goscote Valley, and collectively we’ve populated canal banks, footpaths and barren places with tree saplings.

We support the trees, because, well, the trees they need support. Do. It. Now.