Foxgloves in Townbrook

Townbrook Valley is full of beautiful foxgloves at the moment. These are well worth a look, and keep your eye out for the other interesting plants that grow alongside the stream.

Walcot Woods

Staff and volunteers visited Walcot today to see how the woodland is progressing. When the land was originally purchased in 1995, it was very overgrown. Now, thanks to careful management from staff, volunteers and sheep, the woodland is bursting with wildflowers. It is a beautiful area, with lots of flora and fauna, well worth a look!

Useful Flowers

Assistant Ranger Nick Robinson and John Worrel led a very interesting day this week. They was teaching a group about the uses of plants in dyeing and medicine, as the last part of a course of six sessions:

First a walk in Rectory Wood, where they looked at wildflowers and fungi.

Then back to Carding Mill Valley, to look at the different uses of the plants they had found.



Everyone found the day very interesting, and are keen to get out there and see which plants they can find and use! Keep an eye out for other events that are run in the valley.

Heather in Bloom

If you were up on the hills this bank holiday weekend, as many of you were, you will have noticed the heather in full bloom. It smells lovely and is a beautiful sight, so why not take a walk up to the hills and have a look for yourself?

The heather has a beautiful honey smell

If you don't know which route to take, pop in to the valley to pick up one of our leaflets.



And pretty purple flowers





Wildflower: Long Mynd Session

Last week the wildflower course went onto the Long Mynd. We went to see some wet flushes and then to Wildmoor pool. It was a glorious day and everyone had a great time identifying flowers across the hill.



John Worrell and Nick Robinson talking about the Heather on the hill.



Cotton grass, loads of it in the wet flush areas.



Sun dew, a carnivorous plant which gets its nutrients from insects.



Around Wildmoor Pool



Beautiful Batch

FTV Kate has been in Batch Valley in the sunshine taking lots of photos of the flowers there. The Bluebells are obvious when you are walking through but if you get on your hands and knees you can spot some smaller species of wild flower. 

Carpets of Bluebells covering the slopes in Batch valley.

There are Ladies Smock popping up occasionally and masses of Germanda Speedwell. Also along the stream you may notice some Water mint plants (the flowers won't be out till July) with lovely smelling leaves. There are small patches of Wood Sorrel and Water Cress next to the path, and hopefully some more sunny days will make other species burst out as well. 

Ladies Smock

  

When you look closely you can spot masses of Germanda Speedwell





Garden maintenance

With the sun finally shining, everything in the garden has burst into life. This includes nettles and grasses which if left to their own devices will shade out the wild flowers in the garden. Volunteer John Worrel spent Friday strimming the garden (avoiding the lovely wild flowers) to slow down the rapid growth of the weeds.



Red Campion which now should have enough light to continue to flourish.

A very colourful garden

Now Spring has finally sprung the garden is bursting with life and colour! It is filled with tonnes of beautiful flowers and today being a gloriously sunny day seemed like a great day to photograph them. You can see many of the flowers from the rooftop terrace.



A sea of lovely orange and yellow poppies

Close up of an orange poppy

Germander Speedwell, covering a large patch in the garden.

Herb Robert, The delicate petals look like they are shimmering in the light.

Red campion, is a common roadside flower and the flowers are a stunning pink.