LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY GARDEN

Let me introduce you to my garden. It’s easy care and forever surprising. Indeed, it needs no care at all. It decides for itself what's in it and I never lift a finger to help. I never water. I never pull out weeds - for there are no weeds to pull.

But don’t think it is perfection. By no means. The air is often dreadful. There few places in it I would want to sit. Other people sometimes interfere with the plants; one minute they are there, then suddenly, they are gone. When this happens, it can be disappointing. Worse than that, I can feel a little heart tug. But there’s always a good supply of new ones. Part of the fun is to seek them out and choose them; to note them, peer at and appreciate them. And I always, always, have a little glow of satisfaction when I visit my garden - for it is secret. Nobody visits but me. Hardly anyone even knows it exists. Until today, that is, for I’m telling you now! But there will still be an element of mystery because it covers such a large area it’s difficult to discern and its borders are fluid.  I doubt if anyone who reads this blog would be able to find a single plant in it.

So - let me introduce you to my garden, my garden of the streets - and a little of what it’s like in March

Here are a couple of lawns.

March 29th 2012

I have no idea how many people pass this little lawn during the course of the day but it's set in the side of steps up to a commercial building.

February 29th 2012
(I know that's not March -
but it's only one day out. It didn't change much overnight!)

And here is another. Durable. Hard wearing. No mowing needed. Tolerates drought, flood, full sunshine and shade.

It’s a good time for flowers. There have been some in the winter months; I have sought them out and I’ll return to them. But they've grown old and dusty and I expect you’d like to see new-leafed, freshly opened ones just now.

March 30th 2012
The dandelion at the front of the picture is clear to see - but it's not alone.  There's one with two flowers beyond. Can you see that one? And there are many in the wider fore-court behind me. It belongs to a pub which was closed a few years ago after the river next to it flooded the cellars.  It's deteriorated much since then.

March 30th 2012
Ivy-leafed Toad Flax. In the wall of a large car-park. 

Dandelions really are beginning to assert themselves. Although my garden is a street one (a garden of urban wild plants) if people leave their own gardens untended, I reckon the plants which grow there can be included in mine too. These are 'shared' plants.

March 28th 2012

Like this dandelion.

I have a selection of rockeries. In some, the plants are very small.

March 28th 2012

These ones (above) have to be small or lorries would squash them. They are between the cobbles in the speed bump below. A dustcart had driven over it in both directions a moment before taking this picture.

March 28th 2012

The orange sticks are cigarette buts. That will help with scale.

Given that I have not seen anyone else crawling about on pavements, on the steps to public buildings or in the middles of roads, I suspect looking for these plants and admiring them is a minority interest. And I doubt our streets would be as safe as they are if lots of people took it up. But until I started to look out for urban wild plants, I hadn't realised how many there are to miss!

March 29th 2012

There are succulents too. These little ones will grow into a clump over the crack at the side of the step.

March 28th 2012

Bushes cut down last year are reasserting themselves.

This buddleia will grow substantially throughout the summer and will probably flower.

March 30th 2012

This is the bud to watch. Below is the place where it is.

Buds on the trees are beginning to bulk and green.

March 30th 2012

So, there you have it - a garden with lawns and flowering borders; rockeries, bushes and trees. All are free and free living. People walk through this garden every day. Maybe they notice some of its elements. Maybe they don't. Maybe they chose special plants themselves, perhaps without even realising it. I think this is most likely to happen with trees. Even those with only a subliminal awareness of the urban wild will mark the difference between winter and summer, no-leaves then, suddenly, leaves - a time of sweaty offices and ice-creams at weekends.

Do you have an urban garden?

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PATHS AND THINGS

Blackthorn blossom is far from covering
the bushes yet
but it's beginning to bulk up;
a few clusters now
rather than an occasional flower.

Writing this post has been something of a struggle. I'd decided to write about paths - paths for humans and paths created by animals (mostly by dogs, foxes and badgers round here). It gives a bit of context - something which, I think, is often missing on Loose and Leafy. From time to time I try to make up for this but doing so has challenges. For one thing, I am privileged to have access to such a rich and varied environment, the wider scene could easily nudge out the detail - and it's the style of this blog that I focus on small details. (Leaves - rather than trees; what one can find without moving a foot.) Another challenge is that, because this is the internet, I prefer to be hazy about some locations. I say 'some' because several are utterly distinct and some unique! There's no getting away from the silhouette of Portland! And, finally, Dorset is such an incredibly beautiful and interesting area, Loose and Leafy could easily become an outpost of Tourist Information; an advertisement for wonderful holidays.

Writing a post about paths hit all these challenges, plus three more. One, that I took so many photos for it, I'd have needed to change the name of the blog to 'Trodden Ground'. Two, that there are other things I wanted to fit in today - it is spring, after all! The third challenge is that there are paths interesting enough to include in a wider-context post but which aren't, I find, the richest source of material for Loose and Leafy.

Never mind - here goes with a random selection and a truncated version. We'll start wide - and narrow down.

This, clearly, is the route of an old railway line. You can see the remains of a long platform on the left. A few years ago, someone proposed re-introducing trains and tracks. It would have been a lot of work and a lot of expense but the man who brought forward the idea had a lot of enthusiasm and, I think, saw it as an ecological idea - a way of encouraging people to use public transport (even if privately operated) rather than cars.

The vegetation along here does not look exciting at present but there are lots of brambles and gorse.
In the summer the air vibrates with heat and pollinators.
Quite a few small flowers - like vetches and cranesbill - grow along the sides.

I think the train enthusiast was taken aback by the vehemence of opposition. This path is incredibly well used. Finding a moment when there aren't people in view is very difficult, especially on a sunny weekend, Sometimes, parts of it get so crowded it is hard to find a route through. I took photos of it being busy - locals going to and from town, walkers, joggers, people with tripods and binoculars who'd come to spy birds, and children learning to ride bikes they were bought for Christmas which have been brought back out again now the weather is getting warm - but as I avoid pictures of people when I can, I decided to show you what it looks like in a calm moment. The person in the distance and the shadow of a cyclist can represent all those who use it. They are good symbols. It can be a peaceful place to walk but there are also conflicts between cyclists who think it's a 'proper' road and people on foot - who don't.

This is part of The Hamm -
the path which runs along the causeway to Portland.
This may not seem hopeful ground for plant watching but . . .
just wait!
Before long, there will be a sea of pink thrift along here.

This area, down in a dip and surrounded by Holm Oaks,
is genuinely short of plants all year round.
In part this is because of the trees.
In part because it's a good place for people to
clamber about a bit or
to abandon supermarket shopping trolleys.

Here's a way to the sea. The reeds are a bit higher than I am.
(I first showed this photo on my other blog, Message in a Milk Bottle.)

Here's a way I never go! It's a way made by animals. I doubt even children go down here.
As well as foxes and badgers - rats and squirrels take advantage of these cuts.

Here's the path between the elders we are following.
In the winter, there's room for children.
Already though, vegetation is beginning to crowd in.
Before long, it will be almost impassable.

The elder shoot we have been following (up on one of the branches) has hardly changed. Others near it are growing faster. I'm glad I chose this shoot though because it means I can keep taking pictures of the lichen as well - Common Orange' (Xanthoria parietina).

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One of my first incentives to follow the progress of a particular tree or patch of ground was when some of the trees round here were cut back in what seemed to me to be a brutal and haphazard way. I was concerned rot would get into the bare and ragged ends of small branches. Some were on trees I recognised. But there was one tree - with beautiful twigs, chestnutty red, which I simply couldn't identify. Not in a way I could be confident of.

I am on Twitter and a friend there suggested silver birch. I said I'd go and look at the lower part of its trunk once the undergrowth had died back for winter. I could never get there. It is as protected as effectively as the sleeping princess was by brambles and briers. Just before the nettles grow up and the leaves break out to make the trunk invisible as well as inaccessible, I've managed to zoom in (hurray for cameras!) and get a glimpse.

Looks right?

And another ID problem. As I've mentioned before, I find it difficult to tell the difference between maples and sycamores in their variety.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a book which may help with this because it has examples of the different shapes of their seeds. The ones on the tree where this twig grows will be specially lovely. (I know from passed years.)

It will be a long wait. These leaf buds seem pretty static.

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ALEXANDERS AND ELDERS

Things are changing fast. By the weekend every picture I've taken will be out of date - so here's an interim report . . . of Spring.

Alexanders. There are thousands of them here but they don't grow all over the country and I'd guess the majority of Loose and Leafy readers are unfamiliar with them. I'll give them more space in another post. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that this little cluster of flowers is, in real life, only a couple of inches across. When you look at the plant in passing, you just see lumpy umbelly things - light yellow. It's the leaves which attract more attention - big and dark and glossy. So, in advance of looking at the whole plant - here's a close up, I think it's beautiful. (When the summer gets going, they'll smell nice too.)

Hawthorn leaves are still delicate. When the sun shines on them, they are light and fresh and one's spirits rise.

It's easy, though, to miss the flower buds forming.

These are about 3mm.

Blackberries - some leaves are bursting. Not many yet - but here they come. 

Still spiky and leafless - blackthorn. 

A few flowers are opening. Seeing the first blackthorn flowers open is always an exciting moment.

And the elder shoots we've been watching. 

You can tell the weather is dry. When it rains, the orange lichen turns green.

A bulletin, then, this post.

Everything is racing.

More soon!

Spring should be re-named sprint.

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WHAT'S EVERYTHING DOING?

Clearly, I can't answer that properly! But I can note a few things - and I have to scurry between the house and the bank (the grassy variety) to keep up. For what's happening is happening fast.

Not that this pigeon sitting on a wonky post with its back to the sea is doing much at present. Unlike urban pigeons, and despite being great eaters, wood pigeons never seem to be in a rush.

It is, of course, an eagle in disguise.

What is the blackthorn doing?

It's sprouting flower buds along its thorns.

This, it seems to me, is an odd place for them. I don't mean there's anything unusual about what this small tree is doing. It's just that I think it's a surprising arrangement - flowers on thorns instead of beside them.

In February, on my other blog (Message in a Milk Bottle) a couple of people mentioned that they are unfamiliar with gorse. And the question came up whether gorse is always in flower. I can't answer definitively but I'd be surprised if there were any times in the year where some gorse isn't flowering somewhere. 

In the winter one notices it because its splashes of bright yellow stand out from the gloom. In the last couple of weeks, though, more and more branches have been spurting colour. In the summer, there will be great banks of it round here. I'll give it a post of its own.

What is the hawthorn doing?

Its leaf buds are opening. When they are new, hawthorn leaves are delightful; a delicate fresh green. Later, they darken and the trees become a bit blobbish.

I'm not a bird person. If I can't see who's singing, I don't necessarily know who it is. I can't tell an invisible dunnock from a lark. I guess by the landscape. Bushes - dunnocks. Flat, open land - larks. But, over and over, through the years, I've heard a wonderful song and looked around to see who . . . and it's a robin. And Robins are not shy. They sit somewhere prominent and let rip!

I wasn't the only one who stopped for the performance.

Perhaps we should have clapped during this pause?

Real bird-watchers are quiet people. Those of us who don't know one feather from another stand and chat. The funniest gathering of strangers is when field fares fill a bush and start yelling at each other. You can hardly see them but the bush almost vibrates with noise. One waits for it to explode. Passers-by pause and gaze at it in astonishment. And laugh.

And, just beginning, here and there, the big gold coins of dandelion flowers.

The sky is blue, the birds are singing, buds are opening, flowers are flowering (at least, some of them are!) all we need now is leaves . . . and we are away. Boring, isn't it? Happens every year. All the same. All very predictable. Ah, well, I suppose we'll just have to put up with it. (Expect we'll manage!)

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THE POUNDBURY THISTLE

I rely much on the internet for information. This time, I’ve come a cropper. Think back to the Iron Ages in southern Britain. Oh bother. What do I know of the Iron Ages? Which of its 843 years am I talking about?

The 800 gives a rough idea of time span. The 43 is because 43AD is when Romans invaded. New rulers. New conventions. New architecture. New roads! It didn’t happen over night but, given the overall sweep of history, it brought about some pretty abrupt changes and, in some parts of the country, we are still walking in straight lines. (The Romans liked safe, straight roads with empty wide bits on either side so you could see if anyone was coming at you). In some places, we are also walking around what’s left of what came before - the tumuli and hill-forts of the Ancient Britons (Celts).

Last year's leaf, still on a bramble.

One of the largest and most famous is Maiden Castle - and it’s right here in Dorset, almost part of Dorchester itself. You go through a housing estate and past a Junior School - and there it is.

Not that it has anything to do with Maidens. And it isn’t a castle as one would usually expect a castle to be. The fist time I went there, I was bewildered. I was expecting huge blocks of stone, towers and turrets. Instead, I was taken up a steep hill with its head shaved off to create a flat area the size of fifty football pitches on top.

A very English method of calculation this. We kept ‘feet’ when we dropped rods and bushels, and decided to use football pitches and tennis courts rather than the newly introduced 'hectares'. (Not that many people apart from farmers ever knew what an acre looked like!) And, nowadays, if we want to indicate surprisingly long distances we measure them by unravelled intestines. That’s when we’re not working out how far round and round a tennis court someone’s gut will go! We’ll be consulting entrails about the weather next!

And around it (that is, around Maiden Castle) is a series of ditches. And these ditches aren’t what I’d call ditches, any more than I’d call the hill a castle. They are deep, dug out gullies. (The amount of effort that went into creating all this must have been stupendous!) They make climbing the hill harder and  increase the distance from bottom to top - so invasion is more difficult than it would be otherwise. Maybe the people who lived there . . . (or fled there or whatever they did there apart from protect themselves and their cattle) . . . maybe they filled them with thorns or something. (Fire! ?) I don’t know. That’s what I would have done but I’m not going to find out whether they anticipated my advice because it’s not to the point. I’m wanting to talk neither about Maiden Castle nor about thorns in ditches - but about a thistle. And not even a thistle on Maiden Castle but on a mini-maiden-castle on another edge of the town - Poundbury Tumulus.

This is where the internet runs out. I can’t find anything about this other ‘hill’. (Which isn't to say there isn’t anything about it - just that I’m not spending the morning looking and looking when it’s sunny outside and we’re expecting rain for later.)

A Roman Road runs along the foot and it’s smaller and shorter than Maiden Castle but, otherwise, it looks just like it - and it has a tumulus (a burial mound) on top.

Come to think of it. It isn’t quite the same. On Maiden Castle, the huge, smooth area on top is exposed. Maybe there used to be a wooden fence or a stockade or something like that up there, if only to keep the wind out, let alone enemy tribes. (And Romans.) (Not that it did.) (The Romans were unstoppable.) But Poundbury Tumulus has a neat ‘wall’ of earth round the top, piled high and impacted. It creates a sort of amphitheatre effect.

Here we are on the top.
You can see the earthen 'ramparts' going off into the distance.

It was all last Thursday. I was on my way to meet Kit Berry (who writes the Stonewylde books). She was on her way to a World Book Day event and we were planning to find each other in a cafe at half-past-one. I had set out early, hoping to take photographs of the huge cranes which were looming out of the mist on a nearby building site. They looked very dramatic. Somehow, though, I got diverted and ended up walking round the ramparts of my new discovery. (Not that I am the first to have found it. There are gates and notices and a wheelchair entrance. (Wheelchair entrance!)

I could, of course, have gone straight into this big, open area in the middle - but the highest bit was too tempting. Not that I could pay attention to much once I was up there - I had to concentrate on not feeling giddy or slipping on the narrow path - until the way along it sort of petered out and I came back down into the big, grassy area in the middle - where I met a thistle.

The thistle is flat against the ground
- just beyond the yellow blob in the middle.

The mist had largely cleared by then - but the thistle was hanging onto the dew that had fallen from it and it shimmered white in the middle of the green grass. It was about a foot across and flat - and I’ve learnt (from other iSpot members) that it’s a Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare). In a place seething with military history (fifty-one decapitated Vikings were uncovered during preparation for a new road) - it's not a bad name!

(Unless, of course, it's a Woolly Thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) - opinion is wavering!)

(Or a Musk Thistle (Carduus nutans) . . . waver, waver!)

Drawn closer to see what it is.

There was nothing around it but short grass (I don’t know how many football pitches worth!) and it was lovely. Absolutely, lovely. There were none like it nearby . . . it was just there - like a flattened crown that had been absolutely plastered with diamonds and embroidered with fine white feathers. Sorry to wax lyrical about a thistle but . . .

For 'A Weekend in Black and White'

click the bridge.

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* * *

The Sub-section!

At the top of the post, a blackberry leaf dies.
At the bottom - new leaves are beginning to break.
There aren't many of these yet either -
but before long there will be acres
of brambles.
(Not sure how many football pitches!)

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Take a Bough

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World
Flowering Cherry

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