As Ernie Wise might have wrote, here are some wild flowers what I seen on my holidays. We visited Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia & Bulgaria. We were longest in Albania & Bulgaria and most of the photos come from the latter, not due to it having more wild flowers than the others but because we were […]
Wildflowers of the Balkans – with a quiz! Read More »
1 July is National Meadows Day. We’ve lost a staggering 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s, mostly lost to intensive agriculture. As well as being beautiful in their own right, species-rich meadows and grasslands support a wealth of plants and wildlife. The area of meadows in the UK has become so depleted, that
Celebrating Wildflower Meadows on 1 July Read More »
In many ways, dandelions are the perfect plant: bright yellow flowers for much of the year, if you deadhead regularly, popular with pollinators and seed-eating birds so good for wildlife, very attractive seedheads that are fun for children to play with, striking evergreen foliage you can even eat them. And yet … it’s hard to
In Defence of Dandelions Read More »
The State of Nature 2016 report was published in September. It’s a thorough bringing together of data from more than 50 nature conservation and research organisations. It led to some truly frightening headlines: One in 10 UK wildlife species faces extinction More than half of UK species are suffering long-term declines The abundance of nature
State of Nature 2016 – what can WE do to help? Read More »
Almost the first plant we saw on our “wildflowers of Malham Tarn” walk was sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata). This is a handsome umbellifer with fern-like leaves. There are of course many umbellifers, some of which – such as hemlock and hemlock water dropwort – are poisonous, so you need to be sure of your identification.
The many virtues of sweet cicely Read More »
