April 26th – Clayhanger Common,early morning, not long after dawn.
Yellow army I surreptitiously helped establish here is massing around the grassland. Standing proud, in defiance of the land’s former history as a rubbish tip.
These flowers are a symbol of great progress, undercover as bright yellow, beautiful spring sentries.
May their invasion recur every year without resistance being encountered.
April 25th – The weather is still quite intemperate, but improving. Temperatures climbed at the weekend, then sank again, but on the whole it’s been a drier week – but windier – although the sun too has been welcome.
This improvement has meant trees are now well into the greening phase and it’s starting to look like summer is coming.
With blue skies and emerald embankments and hedgerows, the canal is looking gorgeous again.
It’s a pleasure to see.
April 24th – Pink blossom, just after dawn on the day a town mourns a young life lost way too soon.
Sometimes, nothing more needs to be said.
Rest in peace, little one.
April 23rd – Later that same day, a visit to Telford saw me hauling up the cycleway to Priorslee. A few short weeks ago this view was barren and grey.
Once more this byway is turning into a beautiful tunnel of verdant green.
I love how spring and summer can make even the most dystopian of places beautiful.
April 23rd – Spotted on the canal near Bentley Bridge, what I though was beech leaves in emerald perfection are actually hornbeam I believe (Thanks to reader John for the tipoff).
Either way, their fresh-sprouted perfection is immaculate and beautiful.
April 22nd – An odd sight in spring is always the first wind-seeding wildflowers, in this case I’m not sure what it is, possibly hawkweed. It seems almost incongruous to see seed heads at this time of year, but most flowers who seed this way do so throughout the season.
Such beautiful, silky fluff on this one.
April 22nd – One of the loveliest things about this time of year is falling petals from trees in blossom.
Like nature’s own confetti, it celebrates the coming of warm days, sunshine and light.
To see this delicate beauty, driving in swirls on the breeze, dappling grass and decorating you as you pass is a joy to the heart.
I just wish it wasn’t over so quickly!
April 19th – I note there’s a good display this year of a curious little flower, that of Danish scurvy grass. A tiny white bloom, this plant loves salty soil and has colonised main road and lane verges in what’s known as the ‘burn zone’ – the area generally devoid of life where road salt spray and backwash makes life inhospitable for other plants.
In this salty environment, Danish scurvy grass thrives and blooms, giving lovely withe fringes to the kerbside.
A remarkable thing.
April 18th – There are lots of floral arrivals at the moment but it would be wrong to concentrate on the dramatic, showy ones. One return in the last week or so and enjoying the morning sunshine today from every patch of grass and roadside were a huge number of one of nature’s most overlooked gems – dandelions.
These humble yellow flowers are actually really lovely if you stop and look at them for a bit – which today, I advise anyone to do. They’re really gorgeous.
Sometimes, it’s the little, familiar things that are most beautiful.
April 17th – Every day, new flowers and leaves. This is fantastic, and just what I’ve been waiting for. All I need now is the sun to do it’s thing…
Spotted in a roadside verge near Lower Stonnall on Gravelly Lane – one of my all time favourite spring flowers – muscari or grape hyacinth. A garden favourite, I’m not sure if they’re native here or a garden escapee. But they are so very gorgeous, tiny blue arrangements of even tinier obovoid flowers.
Welcome back.
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