Tag: rose

August 31st – I rode out via Canwell and Middleton to Middleton Hall for a cup of tea and cake, all the while in steady rain. I nipped down to Bodymoor Heath, onto the canal and up to Fazeley Junction. Back along the old A5 to Weeford, then home via Shenstone.

It was warm enough, and there wasn’t much in the way of wind. The roads were quiet and the riding fast; but it was very, very grey and very, very wet. The countryside dripped silently little droplets of grey summer sadness.

As ever on grey days, there was fun and beauty to be found; the architecture of the canals – not just the bold redbrick house, but the small lock-keeper’s hut with the chimney for a stove (how cosy must that have been in winter?); the Kingsbury lock flight and greenery of the canalside reed bed. Fungus is growing well in the damp, and those polypores were huge. 

Middleton Hall was as stunning as ever.

I just loved the hound tied up outside the cafe. He had an endearing way of looking at you with his head to one side. He was muddy and wet and had clearly been having lots of fun.

The red and orange spiny, furry growth on the rose stem that looks like a ball of thread? That’s a robins pincushion or Diplolepis rosea – a gall formed, like the oak galls by a wasp. 

I asked a few weeks ago why only the oak is bothered by wasp galls; it’s not only the oak, but mostly. Lime trees, conifers and roses suffer too. Here, a wasp lays 60 or so eggs in a tiny, developing leaf bud, surrounded in a chemical which causes the plant to mutate and grow this furry aberration, which is internally quite solid with cavities for the larva to hatch and feed.

Nature is quite horrific in it’s fascination sometimes. Find out more about this curious parasite here.

August 13th – A bit better today, and I’m on the mend, and out and about earlier. Time I note for another periodic explanation…

This isn’t pollution at Catshill Junction, or anywhere else it’s happening. This time the scum film at wind traps and bends on the canal is caused by rose bay willow herb plants, which are currently going to seed and producing oodles of the white fluff. 

Just like the sallow earlier in the year, it looks horrid as the chaff and hairy detritus forms a film on the water – but it’ll soon be gone.

Another curious little marker of the passing seasons.

July 8th – Another tick in the arrivals list for midsummer was added today: rose bay willow herb, or old man’s beard. I had to nip into Great Bridge from Darlaston, and spotted this interesting blue-finger variant on some waste ground. It’ll be a rash of colour for a few weeks, then fill the air with floating seeds.

Apparently, the leaves make a decent tea, and once skinned, you can bake and eat the roots. It’s a fascinating plant, but one that dwells on the fringes and is sadly ignored by most folk.

February 18th – A sweet and sad little mystery in Kings Hill Park, Darlaston, I noticed whilst taking a shortcut back from Wednesbury. A young sapling, not long planted in the corner of the park. Surrounded by daffodils getting ready to bloom, a unattributed heart-shaped wreath, and a single red rose. 

A valentines verse, and the date 14th February 1991. 

I have no idea. But it caught me unawares on a sunny, springlike morning. Sad, and yet so sweet.

October 26th – I popped up to Shire Oak Park on the way back, which was also looking good in its autumnal jacket. It was looking less green, but it was pleasant and tidy as it usually is.

On my return to Brownhills a splash of colour caught my eye on a verge on the Chester Road; beautiful vivid red rosebuds, and by Anchor Bridge the ink caps were growing well.

Autumn is a bit of a curate’s egg sometimes.

October 17th – The morning commute was damp, and a little drizzly, but it brightened up as I neared work. On the way, I noted the assortment of hips, haws and berries, glistening with raindrops. For the hedgerow fruits, it’s been a bountiful year, and the birds certainly have plenty in the larder right now.

A fine autumn; best I can remember for many a year.

October 3rd – Bridgtown has my heart. I’m having a bit of a rough time right now, but had to nip to Great Wyrley on my way home, so took the chance to spin over to Sainsbury’s while I was there. That involved a shot through the backstreets of Bridgtown, the sleepy village-within-a-connurbation just off the A5. 

I adore the blue-diamond brick pavements, terraces and shops; it’s intimate, and proud street corner war memorial, and buried away behind the hideous modern hotel, wedged between terrace gable ends, a garden of remembrance I’d never noticed before.

It glowed in the golden hour, with ruby red rosehips, war mural and roses. It seems to have a rather proud caretaker, too. A lovely place.

August 12th – This is strange. I spotted it growing in the thicket by the cycleway in Telford. The plant itself looks like maybe a rose or some kind of bramble, the the growth ar the top is totally alien to me. 

It’s about the size of a golf ball, maybe a bit bigger. Is it some kind of parasite, like an oak gall? Genetic mutation? Or even some kind of uncommon species?

Help invited… it is kind of beautiful.