Tag: wildflowers

#365daysofbiking Respect your elders

May 30th – Also blossoming now is the delightful and humble elder, a shrub beloved of winemakers for hundreds of years. It grows in woods, hedgerows, on wasteland and anywhere it can. Here in Harlaston it’s thriving at the back of Victoria Park.

The tiny, beautiful white flowers have a gorgeous scent and can be used to make wine or champagne: the berries they make way for – deep red, almost black – make a heavy, heady wine that’s almost legendary.

This gives the winemaker a tasty dilemma: White and floral or red and strong?

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#365daysofbiking Borstin orchid

May 30th – One of my favourite times of summer is when the orchids come into bloom.

There are many species of orchid in the UKL and none are particularly common – those we see around the canals and marshes of the local area now are a recent thing and a delight to see.

Varying in shade from a sort of lavender blue to very deep purple, the marsh orchids by the canal and over CLayhanger Common are just beautiful.

Let’s hope the mowers of the Canal and River Trust are held off until they’ve finished their lovely display for another year.

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#365daysofbiking Yellow peril

May 29th – Always nice to see the flowering of the beautifully yellow flag irises that grow in abundance alongside the local canals and wetlands.

Sadly, they really, really trigger my hay fever like nothing else.

So for the next few weeks every canalside ride will be punctuated by sneezing – but in such a good cause.

Such lovely blooms.

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#365daysofbiking Stopping to smell the flowers

May 26th – On a weary recovery day, I pottered to Brownhills on an errand, and passed the canoe centre at Silver Street.

Although not as beautifully maintained as it once was – the planted boat has been left to wild and weed over – the poppies and other flowers growing on the embankment are gorgeous.

Some days it’s about distance, some days it’s about stopping at the wayside to admire the flowers…

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#365daysofbiking By any other name

May 22nd – One of the joys of late spring and well into summer are the various varieties and colours of wild roses that populate wastelands, hedgerows, thickets and any edgeland that’s relatively sun-blessed and open.

In Telford on the way to a client meeting, the cycleway from the station to Hortonwood is lined with splashes of pink – from pale, almost white to deep, deep almost purple. And without exception, they smell divine.

Unlike cultivated roses in parks and gardens, these wayside stars get little or no care and just do their own, dishevelled thing – and to me that’s far more beautiful than some preened and nurtured hybrid.

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#365daysofbiking Until next year, my springtime companions


May 20th – On the subject of things yellow, a seasonal sadness.

I guess it’s coming on summer now, and the first flush of flowering is well and truly over: the daffodils and tulips are long behind us, and late spring flowers like bluebells are dying off – as is my personal favourite, the cowslip.

Cowslips for me epitomise spring and the optimism of a new growing year; bright yellow, delicate and prolific now, they were once rare and I cherish seeing them as I ride around the area.

The ones I set on by guerrilla seeding at Clayhanger are going to seed now and I’ll have to wait 11 months to see these jolly characters again. But it’s be oh so worth the wait.

In the meantime I’ll carefully watch the seed heads develop and dry until the precious seed within is ready to collect, and I’ll gather a fair amount and sprinkle it in places where I think we need more springtime joy.

Until next year, my springtime companions. Until next year.

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#365daysofbiking Wayside stars

May 13th – Every day now there are new wildflowers to be found on verges, towpaths, wasteland and in hedgerows. Devil’s paintbrushes – Hawkweed – caught my eye this morning, as did birdsfoot trefoil and the beautiful, perfect seeding dandelions.

And all these on an unremarkable Darlaston industrial estate.

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#365daysofbiking The magic of the bells

May 5th – Up at Whittington Hurst, a lovely secluded bluebell wood by the roadside I’ve never noticed before.

I left the house seeking peace and healing. And in this wood in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by delicate, English bluebells, I found it.

Here’s to recovery, and a better day.

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#365daysofbiking Saved by the bell

April 30th – It’s nice to see a good showing of bluebells this year. The slightly earlier, brassier Spanish varies are copious, as are the more delicate, darker native variety here.

Right now, hedgerows, woodlands, verges and ditches are alive with shades of purple and blue and it’s rather gorgeous.

L adore spring, and I love bluebells particularly.

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#365daysofbiking Held to ramson

April 28th – At Pipe Hill, between Wall and Burntwood it’s nice to see the wild garlic inn bloom again.

I really love this beautiful, edible plant – sometimes known as ramsons it tastes and can be used just like a little more subtle normal garlic, and it’s scent hangs heavy around woodland, hedgerows and damp ground far and wide.

One of the most popular posts on this journal featured the glade of wild garlic that grows by the River Arrow in Redditch with over 18,000 reactions since it was posted in 2011.

It seems I’m not the only one who likes wild garlic!

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