Bee-friendly Plant of the Month - the Bluebell

The British flora, although small by global standards, is interesting for being a mixture of the floras of several northern temperate zones. In the north of England and the mountains of Scotland, an arctic-alpine flora found more widely across Scandinavia reaches its southernmost limit. In the extreme south of England, Mediterranean species such as the early spider orchid reach the northern edge of their range. But where the British Isles come into their own is in the case of the so called Lusitanian flora.

Named after ancient Portugal, this flora is made up of species that favour the mild, damp climate of the western European Atlantic seaboard. Many of the plant species characteristic of this flora are quite obscure; the strawberry tree of southern Ireland, the pale butterwort of West Country bogs. But one species is an icon of the British landscape. The native bluebell (not to be confused with the Scottish bluebell, which is a harebell!) is found from Spain and Portugal up through France and into Belgium and Holland. But nowhere other than the UK does it form the vast, glowing blue carpets familiar from our ancient woods. And ancient woodlands are the place to find it; a poor disperser, it rarely colonises new sites, instead lying dormant as seed in the soil or growing vegetatively in the shade until a gap in the canopy lets in light and triggers the spectacular display of mass flowering. It will even hang on for years in fields where woodland has been felled, a ghostly reminder of an historic landscape. 

The bluebell’s inability to colonise is something that is sadly not shared by its close cousin, the Spanish bluebell. This rather more robust plant, often grown in gardens, is a superlative escape artist, and is turning up with depressing regularity in the wild, often from dumped garden waste. More insidiously, its pollen is carried by bees and other insects which then fertilise native bluebells. The resulting hybrids then out-compete their pure-blood cousins, spreading their genetic influence ever wider. My advice would be to avoid it as a garden plant; it lacks a lot of the charm of the native species anyway.

Another threat to the native bluebell has been large-scale digging up of bulbs for sale, but it is now protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act and it is illegal to sell bulbs or seed of wild bluebells.

Our native bluebell has undergone several changes of scientific name as taxonomists wrestle with its place in the plant kingdom. It is closely related to the squills (Scilla), of which there are two species native to the British Isles. Like their larger relative, both Spring and Autumn squill are found along the west coast, usually in short, open turf on cliffs, where they can form carpets of violet-blue.

I have a Cunning Plan...

When I was working at the Millennium Seed Bank I was fortunate to be involved in a collaboration with Atlantic College. This international school is based at St Donat's Castle on the coast of the Vale of Glamorgan, and I visited a couple of times to talk to the students and carry out some seed collecting.

And I don't mind admitting I fell in love with the place. After all, what's not to like? A dramatic, well-preserved medieval castle; bright, motivated students; fantastic Tudor gardens; a dramatic stretch of coast full of fossils; woodland and grassland that form part of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast; warm and friendly staff; a modern arts centre; there are even two swimming pools!

St Donat's from space (courtesy of Google, obviously)

So impressed was I by the place that I felt I wanted to make a contribution to its future. Wonderful though it is, it could be so much more; the wild habitats have been unmanaged for years and the formal gardens - though still lovely - have suffered a degree of neglect. After much thought I came up with what has become known as - in the words of Baldric - the Cunning Plan.

My idea is to tie together all the things that make St Donat's so special in a project that is part renovation, part habitat management. There are two central themes:

The Tudor gardens

Having done a little research, it turns out that the gardens are even more interesting than I realised. They are given Grade I status in the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales and Elisabeth Whittle, Inspector of Historic Parks and Gardens for Welsh Historic Monuments, had this to say about them: 'The wonderful situation and scale of these terraced Tudor gardens, their completeness and the lack of major alteration, give them special significance and value not only for Wales but also for Britain as a whole.'

Clearly the sympathetic renovation of these gardens has got to be a priority, and I'm currently researching lists of plants appropriate to an Elizabethan garden.

The Alton boys in the Beast Garden

Biodiversity

Although the nearby Site of Special Scientific Interest stops just short of the castle grounds, the habitats on the estate are still of importance. The woodland is mostly on slopes too steep to have been cultivated, and the clifftop grasslands are species-rich in places. Appropriate management of both these habitats would improve their wildlife value. Atlantic College has its own apiary and the students help to look after the bees; part of the Cunning Plan involves using pollinator-friendly planting to encourage not only the honey bees but also solitary bees, hoverflies, butterflies and a whole range of insect species.

So my aim is to have a series of zones radiating out from the Beast Garden - formal, then semi-formal with drifts of pollinator-friendly flowers, finally blending into the native habitats of woodland and grassland.

How the castle entrance might look

I have the go-ahead to produce a plan; all we need now is some funding...

Bee-friendly Plant of the Month - the Willow

Following on from last month’s plant, the crocus, March brings another good source of pollen for our bees, though a less showy one - the willow. And like the crocus, the willow has a long history of medicinal use. Though it is hard to imagine now, malaria was once a widespread disease in the British Isles, particularly in the damp, low-lying fens of East Anglia. In the guise of the ague or marsh fever, it claimed thousands of lives from the fifteenth century up until its eventual eradication in this country in the nineteenth century. A popular folk remedy for the ague was a bitter infusion of the bark of the willow, a common tree in the damp areas where malaria was prevalent. This was known to reduce the symptoms of malaria, particularly the associated fever. In the nineteenth century the active ingredient of this infusion, salicylic acid, was identified and from this acetyl salicylic acid - or aspirin - was eventually synthesised.

There are 18 species of Salix native to the British Isles, and they range in form from dwarf shrubs of the arctic-alpine highlands to woodland trees. Many of the commoner species are medium sized shrubs to small trees, and are particularly associated with wet ground and river banks. Their fluffy seeds are wind-dispersed and short-lived, relying on a successful touch-down on damp mud for germination. Their other method of propagation is to shed twigs and branches, which have a remarkable ability to take root. For that reason, never use willow for fence posts, or you will find your fence sprouting leaves.

Willows are also alarmingly promiscuous, cross-breeding readily to form a bewildering range of hybrids, a nightmare for the botanist. Amongst these hybrids and varieties are many commercially important forms, such as the osiers used for basket weaving and that English essential, the cricket bat willow. But in terms of early spring pollen production, it is Salix caprea, the goat or pussy willow, which is the real star. Goat willow can tolerate drier ground than many of its relatives, and as such is found in a wider range of habitats, including damp woodlands and hedgerows. It is the classic willow of Palm Sunday, producing its distinctive silvery catkins in time for Easter, though it bears almost no resemblance to the palms of the Holy Land.

But it is the male catkins, of course, that are of interest to the beekeeper. These start off with a sheen of silvery hairs, but soon the stamens open and each catkin becomes dusted with bright yellow pollen. Their resemblance to newly-hatched chicks has led to a number of local vernacular names, such as goose-and-goslings or the wonderful Shropshire variation, goose-and-gubblies.

A Bit of a Bind

Or 'The Great Wildlife Hedge Project:Part 2'. So, the previous hedge having been removed and disposed of, the next step was to prepare the ground for the new hedge. Whilst in the process of digging over the newly-exposed border, I spotted the postman making a cheeky detour through the front garden, taking advantage of the lack of any barrier.

Since the new hedging plants are only tiny and not sufficient to stop a large Geordie postman, something had to be done.

I got hold of some hazel stakes from a friend who was doing some felling, and some long lengths of various woods, predominantly hazel and willow, and made a kind of rustic fence. It's basically a laid hedge without the hedge. The stakes and 'binders' (the twisty horizontal bits) would normally act as the framework for the laid stems (pleachers) of a hedge.

Whilst clearly not postie-proof, it at least forms a psychological barrier. And it seems to have worked, so far.

Hedging my bets

I am in the middle of getting rid of our front hedge. It was a nice enough hedge - Lonicera nitida, which is a reasonable hedging shrub, quite dense and the bees love the tiny flowers. But two winters of snow had battered it down until it was wider than it was tall, and taking up about six feet of the front border.

So it had to go. And obviously it had to be replaced by a native hedge.

Hedging plants were ordered from the wonderful Habitat Aid - their 'Conservation Hedge mix', 50% hawthorn and 50% from a list of other natives, including blackthorn, spindle, field maple and dogwood. And best of all, part of the money I paid goes to The National Hedgelaying Society.

But before any plants can go in, the Lonicera hedge had to come down. Easier said than done - it was a pretty dense hedge, made up of many thin but liana-like stems. A borrowed chainsaw helped, and the sterling efforts of my father-in-law. Oh, and Number 2 Son helped, too, briefly.

The issue then was - what to do with all the brash generated? There seems to be a natural law in the garden; anything you have paid good money for - bark chip, gravel, compost - disappears rapidly as soon as you start to use it. Conversely, anything you don't want - weeds, sub-soil, grass clippings - will expand exponentially as soon as you look at it.

The same applies to brash (twigs and stuff to the uninitiated). Thanks to the kindness of Volunteer Mike, I had an electric chipper, which worked brilliantly with anything stiff and straight enough to feed in. Sadly, most of the Lonicera stems were very flexible, with lots of side shoots. Feeding them into the chipper was like trying to impregnate a cow with boiled spaghetti, if you've ever tried that.

So there had to be fire. I don't need much of an excuse. The good Dr Alton bought me one of those bins with holes in and a lid, and I generated what my mother would call a right puther. ['Puther' is a word I have never heard from anyone but my mother, and it may be unique to her. It means 'a lot of smoke'.]

This was very early in the process; later, I had to go and hide indoors in case the neighbours came and shouted at me. The wind was a little... unpredictable.

Anyway, between the chipper and the fire, the majority of the hedge has now gone. All that remain are some rather stubborn roots - too big to chip, too damp to burn. But their time will come, oh yes...

Next time: I get weaving.

It's an ill wind...

It is currently foul outside the Sussex Nature office, in the way that only January in England can be foul (or possibly February) - cold, dark at 4.00 and lashing down with rain. If the Winter Solstice was our ancestors' way of celebrating survival through the shortening days of winter, it still seems an awful long way from there to spring.

But if - like the good Dr. Alton - the weather is making you grumpy and SAD, take heart; apparently it's good for the wildlife. 'Traditional' seasonal weather, comprising cold winters and (reasonably) warm summers, seems to be benefiting our native flora and fauna, according to this report in the Guardian.

And let's face it, historically our plants and animals evolved to live in a climate where, if I remember correctly from my youth, it always snowed for Christmas and summer went on for week after week of uninterrupted sunshine*. So they should be happy - let's look forward to a flower-rich spring and another flaming autumn!

* Rose-tinted spectacles are available from most good opticians.

Birds of a Feather

To London on Wednesday, for a meeting of the rather wonderful Wildlife Gardening Forum. This was my second meeting, the first being at Wisley last year, and I have to say they really are useful.

The presentations this time were especially good, focusing on a particularly important aspect of the whole wildlife gardening ethos - the need for hard evidence.

There has always been an acceptance, at least within the 'business', that gardening for wildlife is a 'good thing'. But bearing in mind the resistance of some sectors of the population to the idea of a bit of untidiness or - perish the thought - the presence of weeds in the garden, it would be great to be able to quantify that 'good thing' with some proper science.

Thankfully, that seems to be happening. The culmination of the meeting was the launch of 'Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-Year Study', a book by Jennifer Owen, who has catalogued the flora and fauna of her small Leicestershire garden for, as the title suggests, the last 30 years. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say the range of organisms she has recorded is staggering, including some new not only to the UK but to science. And the crucial point is that she has never gone out of her way to garden for the benefit of wildlife.

That was the culmination of the meeting, but earlier talks were just as important. Hard evidence from the BTO demonstrated that a whole range of scarce bird species move into gardens from the wider countryside when times are hard; a detailed survey by Pond Conservation showed that, area for area, good quality garden ponds are as species-rich as those in the countryside, but probably more abundant; and after a presentation by Jan Miller of Saith Ffynnon Wildlife Plants I will be thinking more about the recreation of 'brownfield' habitats in a garden context.

All in all, a thoroughly useful day, and graced by the presence of both Chris Baines and Sarah Raven, which sent my fan-boy heart a-racing...

All the fun of the fair

On Saturday we went to an event called 'Wild About Sussex', organised by the Friends of Burgess Hill Green Circle Network (I think they need an acronym or something...).

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but as it turned out it was one of the best gatherings of conservation organisations I've been to. And over 20 years I've been to a few, believe me.

The FBHGCN (a bit better, I suppose) had packed two floors of the Martlets Hall with stands representing around 40 conservation bodies, including some major players, like the RSPB. Plantlife had come from their HQ in Salisbury, and Pond Conservation had travelled all the way from Oxfordshire.


For a local conservation group to organise such a well-attended and professional-looking event is a fantastic example of what can be done at the grass-roots level. I just hope public attendance was high enough to do justice to the effort that had obviously gone into this event.

Dreadful trade

Had some very nice Samphire with dinner last night, though to my eternal shame (as a supposed wild forager) it came from a supermarket, no doubt at great expense. Raw, it can be very salty, but boiled briefly or steamed and served with a knob of butter (unsalted) it's great.

My wife was trying to sell it to the kids as seaweed, though it is actually a true flowering plant. The flowers, though, are tiny; mere scales on the surface of the cylindrical fleshy stems. The seeds form inside, and when ripe the whole plant shrivels and breaks up into segments, each containing a seed, which are then washed away on the tide. This puts them in the charming category of 'propagules' - units of propagation - rather than true fruits. You can have that bit of useless information for free.

Our native Samphires are a complicated group belonging mostly to the genus Salicornia. They are all very similar, requiring an expert with a hand-lens to tell them apart, and they languish under the burden of names like Salicornia dolichostachya. Luckily for the wild food enthusiast they are all equally edible and pretty distinctive. The saltmarshes where they grow undergo a transformation at this time of year to rival our broadleaved woodlands, as the Samphires and their relatives turn red, purple and gold.

The title of this post, incidentally, comes from King Lear - 'Halfway down hangs one that gathers Samphire - dreadful trade'. That actually refers to another, unrelated, plant - Marsh Samphire. This member of the carrot family is more often found on rocks and cliffs than in saltmarsh, and was collected for the table at great personal risk to the collector, hence the 'dreadful trade'. It is just as edible as its namesakes, though with (not surprisingly) more of a carrot/celery flavour.

Meanderings

A very enjoyable, but also unsuccessful, expedition today in search of crayfish. Rumour has it that they can be found in a certain stream not far from the village, where local children hoik them out in their hundreds and sell them to posh restaurants.

That's the rumour - in practice all we found was one tiny Bullhead. Still, a wonderful little stream with some of the best meanders I've seen for a long time, and lovely to see the kids wading around and poking nets into corners, albeit for no return.

Rocket Man

I love a bit of rocket in a salad, but I've never let it bolt before. It's actually quite attractive, a bit like the native Sea Radish:

Wildflower ID Course

Great first session of this year's wildflower course - perfect venue, enthusiastic participants, tea and biccies... and I get paid to waffle on about something I enjoy.

What's not to like?

New project

Today I mostly sowed a meadow in a wheelbarrow.

I know, I know - it seems like a strange thing to do, but I wanted something to take to shows that was a little bit more interesting than leaflets and flyers.

So thanks to a chap called Nic, via Freegle, I have an old wheelbarrow. Yesterday I filled it with our horrible clay sub-soil, and today I sowed it with a wildflower mix. I may post photos as it develops...

Possible source of tadpoles identified:

Put a little bee house in your soul

Lots of insect activity in the garden this weekend, and it was gratifying to see the bamboo bee house actually being investigated by three solitary bees (are they really solitary if there are three of them?).

At least one now seems to have taken up residence.

Weed

On a day like this, even the humble dandelion looks good.

Produce

In a neat bit of re-use, I forced some rhubarb under a tower of three old car tyres. We had the first crop the other day, stewed with stems and leaves of Sweet Cicely for a bit of an aniseed tang. Very nice, though I say so myself.

And the tyres are now free to be filled with soil and spuds.

Down on Jimmy's Farm

Had a great tour round Jimmy Doherty's pig farm near Ipswich today, with farm manager Nathan, a man of boundless enthusiasm. Spoke of many possible projects, from meadow creation to biomass. All very exciting.

I hope it is the beginning of a fruitful association.

Taddies' daddies

And speaking of which, what about this pair?

I think he looks a bit spent...

Taddies

I found myself watching tadpoles in our pond today, and then realised that I hadn't really stoppped and watched them for years, probably not since I was a kid.

Note to self: don't forget to take the time to watch things like tadpoles. They're brilliant!