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| Harts Tongue Fern (Asplenium scolopendrium). June 1st 2020 |
And while I was sitting there . . .
no
pause
. . . simply sitting there in the sunshine with the trees above us and my trays of brussels sprouts and rudbeckia between us . . . that can count as one of the 'wild' things I did yesterday. Nothing more 'wild' and less tamed than fresh air and sunshine!
Anyway . . . while we were sitting there, I noticed these scruffy ferns in the wall. I guess they are Harts Tongue ferns (Asplenium scolopendrium) but they are very small and very sad. I'm used to Harts Tongues being a foot tall and a deep green and growing directly out of the ground in the Dorset woodland. However, the remarkable thing about these is not really that they are so dilapidated but that they are there at all. No water. No earth. What nutrition?
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| Dandelion seeds? |
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| 30 DAYS WILD Today's act of random wildness is to sit in the sun and look around. |
12 comments:
It is obvious, Lucy, that you need to take your tea to the front step more often! Who knows what else you will see? It is a source of great comfort, always, to me that seeds can find every little crevice where it appears to us there in no soil for them to occupy - but they do. And voilà, new growth occurs. When we humans finally bump ourselves off it will not take nature long to reclaim her own. Stay well and be sure to yell at your neighbour often!
I like harts tongue ferns but these look to be in need of drink.
Maybe you'll have dandelions sprouting forth from your wall next year.
Hello David. I have arranged to drink tea long-distance with my neighbour again tomorrow. Unfortunately the weather forecast says it will be drizzling but that might be quite pleasant after the drought and heat we'e been having.
Hello Adrian. They look dreadful, don't they? I've wondered a bit whether to give them a bit of nutrition or a trickle of water but I wouldn't want them to get too substantial for the wall (as you can see) is a bit tatty and fragile. It might not survive even a small increase in roots. Perhaps I could tug them out and pot them up?
Hello John. Dandelions grow out of quite a few walls round here. Until lockdown I was photographing one in particular with the intention of posting about its growth through the whole year. But that project bit the dust when I had to stay indoors all the time!
First Long Distance Sitting. How enormous things so tiny and simple loom, which wouldn't even have BEEN a thing Before!
We had our First Walk to See the Sea yesterday.
Is the fern in the garden wall (could be lightly watered) or the house wall (better not)?
Hello Diana. You are right. Even the definition of behaving in a friendly way is changed. For neighbours to shout at each other instead of coming up close, to stay consciously outside instead of having a good chin-wag either side of a kitchen or dining table would previously have been considered UN-friendly! But it was really enjoyable because of the context.
Going to the sea must have been wonderful. I expect we will be reading about it on your blog and I look forward to that.
There isn't really a garden here, just a small area where wheelie bins etc. can go - but where I can put seed trays! The wall with the fern is only a couple of feet high and divides it from the similar kind of arrangement my neighbour has. It's very dilapidated. I'm not sure I want to encourage plants in it in case it falls down.
Incidentally, I do have a few square feet of actual earth on the other side of the front door where I have sown some seeds. Mine is the only house in the street with any earth at all. That little bit of earth was one of the things which attracted me to the house - not that I've yet made much use of it.
I love the way you notice little things. What a nice cup of tea can do...
Lisbeth
I've been looking at plants that grow in cracks in the pavement lately and dandelion is one of the commonest colonisers hereabouts. If it can get its taproot down between the flagstones it has access to moisture trapped beneath, so it has stayed green what while the pavements have baked to desert-like heat for the last couple of weeks. A lot of the pavement-crack colonisers are members of the dandelion family, that arrive by parachute - e.g. groundsel and sowthistle
That is a sad looking harts tongue, but it shows how resilient they are, able to make do with a poor quality environment.
That cuppa sounds more civilised Lucy. You must be delighted that you can step out of the house again. I have a similar fern growing just under an exterior door and a couple growing out of a garden wall. They are such tenacious creatures.
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