wild flower census

A new wild flower census, and the list is growing …!

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Here’s a ‘bonus’ Blog to update you on the wild flower census, as it’s now two years since the last one, and I’m excited about the results! I’ve started using the PlantNet identification app for plants I’m not familiar with, as it’s easier and quicker than trawling through several plant books, plus species can be identified by the leaves as well as by flowers; you still need to treat the results with caution, as the app often includes several alternatives.

A case in point is the oddly-named Corky-Fruited Water-Dropwort (Oenanthe pimpinelloides), which I have mis-identified in the past as Queen Anne’s Lace or Wild Carrot (Daucus carota), but which I can see now is quite distinct. Both are white-flowering umbellifers, but the head on the former is flatter. Queen Anne’s Lace also has its immature flower head in the shape of an enclosed ‘basket’.

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Wild flower census, the weather and luxuriant growth …

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Having worked through the month on the Wild Flower Census, I think I may have been a little over-enthusiastic with species numbers last year! I have found that it is very easy to confuse species within the same family or genus of certain plants, especially those in the Daisy (Asteraceae) family – for example the sow-thistles, hawkbits, hawksbeards and hawkweeds – and thus inflate the numbers! But in spite of this, May this year saw 67 species of which I am certain (2021: May = 59; June = 62), and this is a record! It also means that the Forest Garden is maintaining and increasing its diversity in wild flowers, all part of the evidence of increasing soil health, even with the disturbance to ecosystems brought about by planting, creation of the lentil patches (the Carrés), walking where I shouldn’t be walking, and so on. The total number of species over a year in the garden is already over 100. The full census report is in the link below.

Wild Flower CensusDownload
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My, my … mycelium, it’s getting everywhere, and the frost too …

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As you can see from the photos above, there has been quite a lot of mushroom activity this month. They were all of the same species and were spread across the whole extent of the Upper Garden – around the small-leaved lime in the Coppice (left-hand photo), next to a chestnut further down the slope at the end of the Coppice (centre), and next to the quince on the lower swale bank right across the other side of the garden (right). From this, I think it is reasonable to assume that this variety has already spread its underground network across the garden, linking up with other trees and biomass piles along the way. How exciting is that?!

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The Symposium, the lentil patches … and design!

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(For my email subscribers: Remember to read this on the website – better design, more information, updates included, altogether a better experience!)

No apologies for beginning this month’s Blog ‘away from home’. The First International Forest Garden Symposium (see Blog, June 1st, 2021) more than lived up to my expectations. It ran for the whole week from May 31st to June 4th, was a huge success and raised so many important issues, that I have written a short article about it; the Blog needs to concentrate on what’s happening here in the garden, and in an article I am free to express views on the bigger picture and on what the Sombrun Forest Garden Project symbolises in the wider world – a global ‘landscape mosaic’ connection that I think is important, as regular readers will know. To read this, go to the Articles page in the menu above.

And so, to more local matters! The design ideas discussed in last month’s blog (June 1st) have moved on a stage, and it’s now clear that the lentil patches will become the focus of development here. They have been re-named Carré 1, Carré 2 etc (from the French for ‘square’). Carré 1 has this year’s lentils and beans (plus some self-seeded tomatoes from the biomass I added last year, which have been removed as they would have used up all the nitrogen the bed is creating!) and is behaving very well – see below.

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There’s a word for it … evolution!

Jonathan3 Comments

(For my email subscribers: Remember to read this on the website – better design, more information, updates included, altogether a better experience!)

I have had more time to just be in the Forest Garden this month, observing everything that’s going on – and there’s a lot! It’s so pleasing to see the developments, even though to the casual observer it may seem that not much has changed (it still looks like a field!). Living in and among and around the garden I notice how much has happened in the three years since the Project began. And especially this month, I have suddenly realised that what I’m witnessing is the ‘constant evolution’ in the sub-heading to the website’s title. I’m not even sure if I fully realised when I wrote that what it could really mean!

For example, I’m seeing more bugs, beetles and insects in general, and evidence of mycelial networks, this year than before – mushrooms, the caterpillars mentioned below, but also grubs rolled up in tree leaves and ladybirds and beetles to feed on them. It’s good to realise this is happening and that the natural cycles of plant and insect ecosystems and food chains that I know will come, are beginning to get established.

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René, the cèpes, and a busy month!

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(For my email subscribers: Remember to read this on the website – better design, more information, updates included, altogether a better experience!)

Forest cèpes (Boletus spp.)

There’s been so much going on this month, it’s difficult to know where to begin, but I think my neighbour René and his cèpes deserve pride of place. (You’ll have to imagine what he looks like as he doesn’t want his picture to appear on ‘The Internet’, and I respect his wishes).

For me he epitomises the spirit of still being able to gather what Nature has to offer us, and he does it in a sustainable way, on his own, using his local knowledge of where and when a pigeon will be flying over, or the forest mushrooms will appear in the undergrowth. A modern-day hunter/gatherer, he takes just what he needs for himself and I get to share some of his bounty!

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