1st NOVEMBER 2020

I don't know how it has come about that it's so long since I last posted. Here we are at the beginning of November and England is about to enter another 'Lockdown'. Not that this will have much of an impact on the way I live. I've continued to live very separately, grateful for the wonderful countryside around and the interesting area of town I live in.

For some reason it seems like the beginning of June - June when I did a post nearly every day. I can't work out exactly why this is but I think in part it's because of the very definite change in season - the winds and the rain are beating the leaves from the trees at a tremendous rate - and partly because the idea of a lockdown makes one more intensely aware of one's immediate surroundings.

So here's a little update on a small part of what's happening in the very tiny area immediately outside my front door. I put it that way because as usual, the smaller the area one examines, the more there is to see.

Harlequin ladybird. 1st November 2020.

Let's start with the wildlife. Ladybirds are still moving around. Here a harlequin is exploring a pot containing a groundsel plant that I've been watching over the summer. Groundsel is a very common 'weed' in England; probably familiar to most readers. However, I doubt many have really paid much attention to what it's like, what it does, how an individual plant behaves. I would encourage everyone to put a pot of earth outside their door and see what happens - an empty pot with earth. In England at any rate it's almost inevitable that a seed will land there. Let it grow, see what it is, examine it. If it turns out to be a nettle, you might want to pot it on, let it grow to its full height, watch it flower. Or it might be something you have never come across before.

Snail hibernating in brick wall.
1st November 2020

In the short wall that separates me from my neighbour, a snail has taken up residence for the winter. I was going to move it but it's further in than it looks so I'll let it be. When it comes out of hibernation and begins to wander around, I'll probably relocate it to a distance as I am not tempted by the idea of letting it feed on the vegetable seedlings I will put outside my door in spring. I say 'to a distance' because snails have an annoying homing instinct. One year I painted numbers on the snails that I removed from my garden - on their shells with typewriter correction fluid. They kept coming back. Each time I removed them further away until I found the distance from which they would not return. Number "2" was specially persistent.

Hart's Tongue Ferns in brick wall.
1st November 2020

The hart's tongue ferns in the wall are thriving. I still feed them every so often with the fluid from the Hozelock Bokashi digester which arrived via Karen. I've lost count of how many there are now. I've also poked leaves from other kinds of ferns in some of the cracks - waited till the spores on their backs were ripe and in they went. Whether they will grow or not . . . that will be another adventure. (Incidentally, a couple of leaves have appeared all by themselves which I think are probably of an ivy leaved toad flax. I hope so. I like that. Unfortunately they are on the most shady part of the wall so may not thrive.)

Lemon Balm and Pink Geranium in pots on steps.
1st November 2020.

On the steps to my door I have four pots. Here are two - the lower step has lemon balm, the upper one a geranium. They are getting bedraggled - but it is November!

The demise of pot marigold flowers and beginnings of some seeds.
1st November 2020.

On the other side of the step from the geranium is a pot marigold from Mike. I had hoped it would produce seeds but it isn't doing too well on that front. On the other hand, a couple of seeds which I planted in another pot at the same time but which didn't immediately germinate have now come up and look quite sturdy so I am hoping they will over winter well and flower early next year - the Sofa-Flying Calendula connection will continue!

Pot with bulbs under earth concealed by fallen sycamore leaves.
1st November 2020.

Also in pots, ready for next year, I have alliums, tulips and daffodils. I can't remember which are in which pot but never mind. It will be fun to see what happens. I have been piling sycamore leaves on them to keep them warm when frosts come. Sycamore leaves take ages to get soggy and flat and keep blowing away - but the moment will no doubt come when rain will win and turn them into a soggy blanket for the bulbs which are not really as deeply beneath the surface of the soil as they would probably like to be.

Seeds coming up in earth.
1st November 2020.

There are similar bulbs in the tiny patch of earth outside my house. I sowed some nigella (Love in the Mist) and cornflower seeds to see if they would come up with a head start and keep the marigolds company over-wintering. Some seeds are germinating. Whether they are seeds I've sown or more petty spurge I don't know! I've scattered fox gloves (I don't think they are fox gloves) and aquilegea there too . . . we will see . . . or perhaps not see if they get eaten or drowned or frosted . . . ! ! !

Cyclamen seedling.
1st November 2020

Back to pots; a couple of years ago I bought red and white and pink cyclamen from a garden centre and put them in my window boxes. Only one has survived. However, they dropped seeds which grew and I have transplanted the results into pots. This is the most advanced of them.

Twig with common orange lichen.
1st November 2020

And finally - look what the wind blew in. Here's a little twig with common orange lichen on it (Xanthoria parietina). It landed behind one of the pots on the door step and I placed it on the wall between me and the street to take its photo. The little metal lumps are the remains of railings. I expect they were sawn off during the second world war. The government collected up railings from the fronts of people's houses to melt down and use as part of the 'war effort'. I don't think many, if any, were actually used. Maybe it helped people feel involved. I don't know. I wasn't there. But all over England there are these sad little stumps, constant reminders of futility.

The lichen's lovely though, isn't it?

Link

"So What Really Happened to Our Railings?"  On London Gardens Trust website.

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Connecting with Nature Notes on Rambling Woods.

STREET PLANTS AT THE END OF MARCH FOR THE BEGINNING OF APRIL

This is a picture post. There's not much to read. If I had lots to say, I'd say it. But today, I don't. I'll let the plants speak for themselves. Or, rather, not speak for themselves for they are pretty quiet at present; battered by frost and snow, constantly being deceived into thinking it's spring when it isn't.

The exception is this groundsel which seems pretty chipper. I've never described anything as 'chipper' before but the word seems to fit. The angle shields it both from north and east winds and for the moment it's not garlanded with litter.

For the most part though, I look higher up walls to find plants. I've never lived anywhere with so many stone walls before. All seem to be built in the same way; two walls built parallel to each other and the gap between them filled with smaller stones. On top of these is a layer of long stones laid horizontally, with a row of quite hefty, sideways stones on top. The work which must have gone into these walls must have been phenomenal. The tonnage, mind boggling. And because of the topography here, some are waist or shoulder high on one side but way, way higher on the other.

Here are dandelion seedlings beginning to look out newly on the world.

And foxgloves which have overwintered are beginning to green.

This is common but I can't name it.

A dilapidated ivy leaved toadflax would you say?

And the always-interesting shape of an unfurled willow-herb seed pod.

All these plants were photographed on 30th March, ready for the first of the month posting. Daft. So I'm moving the street plant posts to 20th of each month. I'll put a link box then too - and afterwards always on the 20th.

In the meantime, if you have a street plant post that you'd like us to know about, do put its URL in the box below.

(The site which provides the link box seems to have gone down . . . and the link box has vanished along with it. By the time I next look, hopefully it will have reappeared. In the meantime . . . . if you have a Street Plant Post to share - leave its URL in with the comments.)

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WALL - A STREET PLANT POST

I've decided, for the moment, to keep comparing. Contrasts are interesting. They matter.

The dark walls of Halifax and the surrounding fields bothered me when we arrived. Gloomy. I wasn't sure whether this blackness is intrinsic to the stones the walls are made from or whether it's soot. London used to be black. Westminster Abbey used to be black. Look at it now!

And I can't answer this yet. (Don't worry. I'll find out. Plenty of time.)

I'm getting used to them. What's more, they are a good place to find street plants. So it's another new experience - to look sideways and up, not just down by my feet.

The picture above . . . I think I'll have come back to this exact spot when I do my next 'stuck foot' post. I'll take photographs just of the plants in this immediate scene. So many crammed in together.

Here's a confluence of themes. I'm getting used to a green instead of white light when it rains and finding it's interesting to notice familiar plants in a new context. Groundsel; but camouflaged. The plant and the green on the wall in the rainy late-afternoon light of a January day are in harmony. A unity. An invisibility. It's a surprise. A new experience. When it rains, black walls turn green!

I don't know what this plant is. Can you tell me?

What about this one?

This fern below?

Does it strike you that the stones look like petrified wood?

Why is this ivy red? Can anyone explain?

And below - a foxglove!

Until I came here, I'd not thought of foxgloves as urban wild plants. Very country hedgerow I'd have said. That was . . . until the first post on this blog when I found them growing on top of another wall.

On moving from Dorset to West Yorkshire I started again with 'Loose and Leafy in Halifax'. Maybe I made a mistake. Perhaps I should have created a blog dedicated solely to this wall!

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OUR WORLD TUESDAY

If you'd like to join me in noticing and admiring plants growing wild in towns and cities . . . I'll be putting a link box for Street Plant Posts on Loose and Leafy, 1st - 7th February.