Images

July 13th – I’m sad to see the huge horse chestnut trees on Stafford Park in Telford are suffering for the first time I think with leaf miner parasites. 

These tiny larva destroy the leaves of the host tree from within, and although leaving the host pretty much unharmed, they bring on an ‘early autumn’ but causing the leaves to become blotchy and brown.

It looks worse than it is, but it’s a sad end to the season for many a beautiful tree.

Hopefully the current wave of these insects will pass soon.

July 12th – I was pleased to note that one little purple flower has returned this year to the verge outside the place where I work – Self Heal. It grows low in grass and often misses the mowers. It has a very unusual flower head configuration featuring absolutely tiny but gorgeous violet blooms.

The plant, given it’s name as you might expect, is known for it’s medicinal properties, and brings a splash of colour to lawns and verges throughout middle to late summer.

Monday 9th – One of those days when you get disheartened as you took some great images but didn’t realise until late that there was a smudge on the camera lens that ruined them all…

After realising and wielding the lens pen, coming back from Lichfield late in the evening as I came up Shire Oak Hill the sunset was coming on well. This is the second time in the last few days we’ve had insteresting sun/cloud interactions, and it looked great in a gold-suffused hour.

It felt much fresher, and the building cloud is making me wonder if the weather is soon to break… but after the worst, latest spring I can ever remember, if it rains until l December now, we’ve had a terrific summer.

July 6th – No apparent issues with the thistles this year, however. In fact it seems a good year for them – prickly and purple, they are flowering well and in larger number than I’ve seen for a good few years – so as I suspect, water probably isn’t an issue for them like the berries, hips and haws of the hedgerows above.

The colours – from pale lavender to deep, dark purple – are always a joy. Thisles are very underrated indeed in my opinion.

July 6th – Well, all week now I’ve been talking about the onset of the fruiting season, and here it is: The first blackberries are beginning to ripen near Clayhanger.

Not sure how good they’ll be though with the chronic lack of rainfall this summer: no chance to swell those lovely purple-black berries.

It’ll be interesting to see if the end crop is as early as it feels, and if the fruit are any good…

July 5th – Always bittersweet to see the berries come; a sign that spring is well and truly gone and summer is peaking.

Still, the Belisha orange berries of the rowan or mountain ash are beautiful in their own right and will bring colour aplenty to hedgerows, parks, verges and thickets for weeks to come, as well as being foraged for jams and jellies.

You can’t escape the passage of summer, so best enjoy it.

July 3rd – Summer ticks on and as I noted a few days ago, we’ve moved from flowing to fruiting. 

Lots of berries are now developing on the branches, from haws to rowan berries and even plenty of ripening cherries.

These will bring with them reds, oranges and purples and a whole range of new colour as they and the season mature.

A wonderful time of year.

July 3rd – Growing along just about every lane, track, cycleway and footpath at the moment, a very much overlooked purple wildflower.

No, not thistle, but knapweed. Similar, knapweed is not hostile or prickly, but flowers similarly in strong purple, a favourite of pollinators and a great source of high quality nectar, it’s seeds feeding many songbirds too.

Sometimes the best flowers fly under the radar.