Thursday 2 April 2009

Around my acres

The sunshine has really brought the wild flowers out on our own little plot here. The paddock, rather than the top field, is looking an absolute picture, though I have a mass of young Primrose plants clustering under a hawthorn bush up on the top field line, in a little triangle of land which is fenced off from the main field.

I looked across the paddock on Wednesday and saw a haze of blue. Speedwells, but I have been pondering exactly which sort. I believed they were just the Common Field Speedwell, but having looked very closely at Marjorie Blamey (The Illustrated Flora of Britain and Northern Europe), I think they are 95% positive the Slender Speedwell because of the petal colouring and the mostly opposite pairs of leaves. Double click to enlarge the photos.

Close-up of Marsh Marigolds (Kingcups) growing around my wildlife pond in the garden. More about them tomorrow. The tadpoles by the way, are growing well, and now have their own halo of bubbles above them where they are whipping up a storm by wriggling so much en masse . . .

This little corner of the paddock, leading to what my daughters always called TheFairy Dell when they were younger, has a wonderful display fo Celendines on the bank.

And a few more for luck, growing on the slope of what was the Mill Pond.

Here are the Speedwells - a blue-grey blush from the distance.

Happy little faces closer to.

And positively radiant in close-up.
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4 comments:

  1. Rowan3 April 2009 at 10:44

    The speedwells are lovely aren't they? I've seen lots while I was out this afternoon and mentally marked it down as creeping speedwell. Maybe I'd better look more closely! Heard a chiff chaff too I think, at least that's what the call sounded like. My birdsong recognition skills are nil I'm afraid.

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  2. Bovey Belle3 April 2009 at 11:45

    I just thought "Speedwell" and then thought I'd better look it up, and was surprised to find they weren't the common sort, but the slender ones, which I will confess I have never heard of before today. They're not mentioned in the Roger Phillips Wild Flowers book which is usually my first port of call, and does indeed list several different species of Speedwell. Off to leave you a PM on CL about meeting you Monday if that's still OK.

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  3. daisy4 April 2009 at 03:26

    There are some little blue flowers growing by my allotment which I've been wondering what they are, thanks for this post as looking at it, I'm sure they are some sort of Speedwell.

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  4. Goosey4 April 2009 at 22:42

    I love Celandine, so pretty mixed in with the grass. I also love seeing daisy's and dandylions in grass, nothing like it! Hope you are well, sorry I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately!

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