Wildflower of the Week

Not so many wild flowers out now, but yarrow will bloom until October and sometimes right through the winter. It comes in pink and white and is also known as milfoil - meaning "a thousand flowers". Each flowerhead is made up of many tiny flowers.

 

Lovely HB,i have bought myself a new wildflower book after having my Observer book since childhood.There are many flowers in this area i haven't seen for years so need to check up what they are.

[ 24. September 2006, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: Gogs ]

 

Ivy flowers are opening now and are a valuable source of pollen for late flying bees. Later, the berries will form and feed the birds during the winter when all of the autumn fruit has gone.

 

There's a lot of old ivy in my garden and it's great to see the birds eating the berries in winter. I've only just noticed this year how pretty the flowers are- and I'm 63
It seems the small plants don't flower- the plant has to be established before it produces them?

 

Yes that's right, Liz. The younger and lower leaves are the familiar jagged ivy leaves, but when the plant is mature, the upper and outer leaves lose the jagged points and become smooth. That is when they flower.

 

The plant is fascinating botanically. The Araliaceae are a huge family of tropical plants - mostly tall forest trees. There are few genera that have made the move to our temperate conditions, and Ivy is the most common representative. It has changed it's life cycle extending the juvenile phase to allow greater colonization by climbing up and across trees, holding with its adventitious roots, and displaying the classic 'ivy' shaped leaf as it reaches for the light. Once it can climb no further it adopts a sturdier, more branched structure, and develops the mature part of its life cycle. Here the leaves are smoothly oval, the shoots thicker, and the habit more tree-like. It is this phase that can develop reproductive structures, and it is associated with deep changes at the level of the nucleus.

I believe that the mature phase is a relic of its original tropical habit (where the juvenile stage would have been much reduced or even absent). Possibly one reason for the change is that the juvenile phase is more heavily frost tolerant than the adult phase, allowing survival and rapid recolonisation of tree canopies after severe winters - as has been documented at Wytham Woods a few times over the last hundred years.

 

Thanks Jazid - that is a very interesting insight into a wonderful plant that is so often overlooked or condemned. Does play havoc with rendering on houses though!

 

Sadly so though I remain unconveinced that the damage doesn't occur on its removal rather than it's actual rooting. I find that the walls behind mature ivy are always remarkably dry. I also find the ivy or what lurks within it is remarkably sneeze making.

Several of my clients think it brings bad luck and won't have it on the property. Seems to me the clients bring more bad luck to the ivy than vice-versa but hey - customer's always right.

Here's two tips for those keen to remove ivy but new to the game: If at all possible cut it off, then leave it a few weeks to dry right out. Secondly, start at the bottom! Cut the thickest stems, then with a knife or blunt blade lever enough off the wall to get a good grasp, then pull slightly out and downwards at a narrow (acute?) angle and it sort of unzips off the wall in long stretches. Dry ivy is ten times easier to remove - and comes off in much bigger lengths, and if you start from the bottom you will achieve the required result a huge amount faster.

Apologies to anyone thinking of words such as eggs, granny, teach, suck in no particular order; above info strictly for beginners to the ivy removal game!

 

I had Hubby pot up some ivy this year, it makes a wonderful addition to flower planters, giving downward length (that sounds silly, doesn't it?) whereas everything else is growing up and/or across. If you put it in small pots you can add it to most any planter or pot, use it again and again without having to uproot it, plus it doesn't get out of hand this way. We just have the green veined sort this year but I think that next year some of the marbled sort would be nice too.

 

Yes - the marbled sort are lovely. Variegated ivy is great in winter hanging baskets with winter pansies.

 

When we lived in Bucks, our garage was covered in Ivy ... it was wonderful and looked brillant. Was it Marley Farley who had a picture up on one of the Photo Comps with a similar situation of a barn covered in Ivy?

I agree with Jazid completely about the removal of such ... and you do have to keep it in check if you want the totally covered look, that you cut from the bottom, let it dry out and then remove the dead stems. Our garage was rendered and we didn't lose any of it.

Good idea, Kedi-Gato of keeping it in pots etc and just replacing the other plants. I think the marbled would look lovely. Haven't got it going here yet but thankfully by 15 year old Bonsai Ivy is still alive, although I lost my Cotoneaster! :(

 

Plenty of wild flowers still around, but the real show now is of berries. Following the long hot summer and masses of blossom, trees and shrubs are now laden with berries.

Some are very early like holly:


Few people notice the flowers of holly which bloom from April to June:

 

This is so strange!! Wild roses (unlike garden varieties) do not repeat. Yet here on the Essex coast we see flowers and hips at the same time!



A stunning rose on the lonely and remote shore of Mersea Island, Essex.




Sea Mayweed in bloom in October!



Nearby were these seedheads which look like clematis.



The confusing hawkweeds are still blooming well everywhere all along the edge of the marsh.



This is the longest sustained summer since records began - no wonder the plants are confused

 

Gorse can be found in bloom every month of the year. Hence the saying: "When gorse is out of blossom, kissing is out of fashion!"
It is also known as furze or whin depending on your part of the country. Its prickles are ferocious and it would be a good burglar deterrent. Often wonderd why we don't grow it in our gardens.

 

It smells like coconut on a sunny day too, and grows absolutely anywhere! You'd think we'd all be growing it???