Sunday Morning walk
by Ian Bushell
Not a bad Sunday morning, bright and dry, with no wind but a little chill.
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Double flowers
If you are planting your flower beds and hanging baskets this weekend, keep our dwindling population of pollinators in mind and please don’t plant double flowers.
Continue readingDisease Resistant Elms
by Ian Bushell
In 2017 a White-letter Hairstreak butterfly was recorded in the park. These beautiful butterflies are the emblem of Wiltshire Butterfly Conservation group. They feed on English or Wych Elms, which unfortunately over the past few years have been ravaged by Dutch Elm disease, leaving dead gaunt trees within some hedge lines.
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Snake’s head fritillaries photographed in the park last week.
Invasion of the Spanish squill
On Friday we posted a gallery of grey squirrels, an invasive alien species that has almost completely replaced our native squirrel population. Unfortunately, our native bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) is also being threatened by the spread of an invasive alien: Spanish squill (Hyacinthoides hispanica), a similar bluebell species imported into our gardens from southern Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The extraordinary flowers of wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) growing in the Arboretum.
Conservation status: common
Pictures by Suzanne Humphries
COULD FOOD FORESTS BE THE FUTURE FOR ORCHARDS?
You will know that the Park has an orchard that was planted a few years ago. Some of you might have helped to plant it. It was created as a Community Garden and to maintain expertise we keep in contact with the Orchard Project, a national organisation for such orchard managers. This article is from their latest newsletter, which I feel will interest many park users.
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The first fritillaries
Julie Newblé and Ian Bushell have sent us pictures of the first of the year’s beautiful snake’s head fritillaries (fritillaria meleagris), which are classified as vulnerable on the Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain.
Nettle soup
The stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) are coming up: wonderful habitat for invertebrates, itchy feet for our dogs and free food for us. Try nettle soup, easy to make, nutritious and very tasty.
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Wood anemones
The wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) is a member of the Ranunculaceae family, a close cousin to all the buttercups.
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Our blackthorn blossom has been beautiful this year.
pictures by Suzanne Humphries
A splash of colour in the park
by Simon Knight
It is lovely to finally see flowers and colour arriving in the park, signalling that spring will soon be upon us.
Continue readingLesser Celandine
The lesser celandines (Ficaria verna) are in flower. Celandines are the floral equivalent of the swallow, they appear around the same time and mark the coming of spring. In fact the word celandine comes from the Greek name for swallow: chelidon. One of its local names is spring messenger; others are brighteye, butter and cheese, frog’s foot, golden guineas and, less romantically, pilewort because it was once used to treat haemorrhoids.
Continue reading “Lesser Celandine”Blackthorn
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is the earliest of our native flowering trees.
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Crocus vernus photographed in the park by Clive Knight. Crocuses are not native to Britain; they were brought here from central and southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and China, in the 15th century.
The sex life of a primrose
Primroses have an interestingly complicated reproduction system.
Continue readingSunday walk
FoSCP members, Ian and Pat, walk in the park with Pat’s dogs early on Sunday mornings. Pat, our champion litter picker, picks up the rubbish other park-goers have left behind, while Ian surveys the fields and woods for first flowerings, new species and the occasional damage, and reports back to HQ. Here is last Sunday’s bag:
“…Bullfinch in the hedge near Stoat Oak, native Daffodils in flower and Stinking Iris leaves at bottom of Kestrel Field near to the pond…”
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[1[ Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula); [2] Native daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus); the flowers [3], seeds [4] and strap-like leaves of Stinking Iris (Iris foetidissima)
Dog’s mercury
Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis) is one of those mysterious, usually nameless, plants that is hardly ever noticed. It forms dense carpets on the woodland floor and beneath old hedgerows but appears to most passers-by as just background for the bluebells and primroses.
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Pussy willow
A goat willow’s flowers, or catkins, known as pussy willow because they look like furry grey kittens’ paws, appear in February, one of the earliest signs of spring in the park.
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Five fascinating facts about snowdrops
Continue readingA gallery of snowdrops
Header picture by DKG
Rain!
The park is full of water; there are deep puddles everywhere. Everything is wet and muddy and the paths are flooded.
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Hazel
As always, the first flowers of the year are the hazel catkins: a familiar and friendly sign that spring is on its way.
Continue readingNeonicotinoids
The Government has decided to allow the emergency use of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet in England in 2021, despite objections from conservationists. The decision, in response to pressure from England’s farmers, will permit the treatment of sugar beet seed to combat beet yellows virus, which is spread by multiple species of aphids.
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