November 28th – In winter, as I’ve often observed, you have to take beauty where you can find it, and to find it one must maintain a keen eye.
Hurrying into Wednesbury today, I noticed this confused thistle, in perfect full bloom. It was immaculate, this king of the wasteland, and made my day.
I must have passed this a few times and not noticed, like so many must. I need to sharpen my eye, and keep my sense of wonder in these coming dark months. Doing so it what keeps me going.
November 25th – On a bright, cold winter day, near the M6 Toll in Great Wyrley, clematis seed heads looking very alien in a forgotten, edge-land thicket.
These fascinate me, as no two have quite the same texture or appearance. I bet these were an absolute riot when they were in flower. I must come here next summer and see.
November 18th – A day of spannering bikes and a hurried test ride out late afternoon. The light was terrible and things looking grim, then a spot of brightness on Clayhanger Common – ox-eye daisies still in full, fresh bloom.
A great discovery on a down in the dumps Saturday.
November 2nd – Despite the gloom and cooling weather, there are still patches of colour to be found. On a dew-dampened canal towpath as dawn swelled over the Black Country, the clover still looks perfect in purple.
The dark, cold months are about finding joy where you can…
September 19th n- One of the odder fruits of the autumn is the snowberry. Serving only as bird food, this ornamental shrub, like firethorn, is often used for ornamentation in public parks, edge lands, industrial estate landscaping and so on.
As far as I can tell, the birds seem to like the white berries that make a distinctive popping sound when stepped on or thrown hard at the floor, and the bees certainly like the pink and white flowers, still very much in evidence on the same shrubs as the large, healthy-looking fruit.
Snowberry will grow with little attention needed and does look pretty, especially when dappled by dew, as these examples in the centre of Darlaston attest.
July 25th – On an unexpectedly sunny afternoon, travelling between Tipton and Darlaston at 3pm, this gem looked splendid indeed.
On the island at the bottom of Owen Street – Tipton’s High Street – just by Coronation Gardens, Sandwell Council planted the centre with wildflower seeds. This is the result.
It’s gorgeous, captivating and a joy to the heart. Thank you to whoever did this, it’s a real act of beauty.
The Black Country: It ay all chimmocks and grime these days…
July 17th – Time for my annual botanically subversive mission: spreading the cowslip love.
After the usual delightful display in the spring, my favourite flowers have finally started to seed. I carefully collect the seed heads in a bag, shaking the seeds into it.
When I have plenty, I carefully spread the seeds on hedgerows, verges and anywhere that would benefit from springtime cowslips.
Guerilla seeding. Do something pretty while you can.
July 3rd – Also on the towpath near Darlaston, the poppies are beautiful at the moment, too. Another kind of urban pioneer, these too will grow just about anywhere, be it in a wayside patch or a fissure in some brickwork.
Riding urban backwaters at the moment – be they canals, tracks or inner city streets – is a real riot of natural colour.
July 3rd – It’s time for my annual heart-wrenching over the purple conundrum that is the butterfly bush. Buddleia is a prolific, very common shrub that will grow anywhere, in any scrap of earth or soot, and is synonymous with urban decay: look upwards in any town right now and you’ll see this tenacious battler growing and flowering from cracks in brickwork, lifting tiles on roofs, blocking gutters, prizing apart chimneys and crowding any embankment, towpath, disused rail line or wasteground.
It’s beautiful and very good not just for Lepidoptera, but all manner of bugs and is very, very pretty. But it is such a symbol of dereliction and decay.
June 25th – better day, but not for the weather. I was looking forward to a longish ride out, but the ongoing local issues and squally weather meant the ride I’d hoped for wasn’t going to happen. I contented myself with a loop around Brownhills, Chasewater and Walsall Wood.
At Anglesey Wharf, despite the poor day, the wild sweetpeas have clearly survived the scrub clearance last Autumn and are blooming beautifully around the old coal-loading chutes.
They cheered me up immensely, and I still find it remarkable that such lovely flowers sprout from what was once a dirty, grimy place. fantastic to see.
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