August Notes

by David Tidmarsh - 10:09 on 17 August 2013

Kens Nature Notes

Seeds of change seem an appropriate way of starting these months notes, flowers are fading blossom is turning to fruits with just a few late comers in the wild flower sections. Most of the Meadow Crane’s-bills Geraniums have now seeded with the odd single blue flower remaining, they look like they are looking for their family of brothers and sisters who have all grown up and left.
A single yarrow plant was spotted this morning, another late flower with fresh white blossom. Unlike the Balsam that has escaped our bash a few weeks ago, most are heavy with flower and seed pods ready to catapult their evasive seeds far and wide. We did make a small impact with our Balsam removal; it was a good sociable gathering with some new faces all keen to help out. Warm weather and nettles didn’t help the event as my arms were stinging for a few days after, however I wasn’t as bad as Les, who arrived in shorts! It didn’t have same the ring to its title Balsam Bashing as our annual Weed and Wine but it went off well, sadly the weed and wine was rained off this year, however we managed a small meeting before breaking open a few beers. It’s a hard life!
The ash trees are heavy with their seed collection for this year; we don’t seem to have the ash problem that is affecting some other parts of the country thankfully, it must be really sad to see mature trees dying back that have been growing healthily for years. These diseases can really decimate large groups of trees, the one that springs to mind is the Dutch Elm disease, very few have been able to escape the attack.
Fresh growth in the Mountain Ash is highly visible with the flowers, having been pollinated and now turning into fruit/seeds.
I have noticed some better results in the Horse Chestnut trees this year, producing the sort after seed (Conkers to you and me) that were sadly lacking last season. 
A Purple flowering plant, growing happily among the grasses has finally been identified as the Common Knapweed its flower looks thistle like but has no spikes. It is part of the Daisy family by my reference book and so is the Great Burdock with its mass of seed or as we used to call them “Sticky Jacks” ideal missiles to throw at your friends as they stuck to clothing effortless. These of course gave us the modern Velcro that is a part of so many items of outdoor clothing. 
Hedges are now in need of trimming, these much needed avenues for wildlife are still under threat but they need to be managed properly to encourage birds to nest. It is a shame that it is more of a chore to keep these tidy enough to be acceptable in our location but if you didn’t they would become barriers rather than wildlife habitat.
It has been a cracking summer and I am still amazed we have not been subjected to a hose pipe ban, let’s hope I have not spoken too soon. Cheers. Ken.

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