A Year in the Valley

The buttercups in our watermeadow are not the neat little pops of colour studding the lawn again two days after mowing.  They flourish in the undergrowth, delicate stemmed with three-lobed intricate leaves, the familiar flowers bold gold splashes in the marine-like depths of the undergrowth.   Fifteen months ago, we planted a Kingcup, or Marsh Marigold, the supersize version of a buttercup, with a stout stem and flat, scalloped leaves.  It has settled in well – loves paddling, even swimming, in the winter – but has long since flowered for this year, so I hope to feature it next spring.  Then, up in Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve, I spotted tall-stemmed, slim-leaved Water Buttercup flowers in a pond.  Interesting that three similar flowers have such different leaves, but I have since discovered that there are a number of different kinds of buttercups.

We’ve been away for a week (I took loads of photos before we went and scheduled some posts) and on our returned have been stunned by the change in garden dynamics. The first Hemlock Water Dropwort trunks have crashed over our back fence burying two of our alder saplings.  The tall grass (Reed Canary grass, I think) that thickly populates the valley and our patch is now at least 8ft tall and has overtaken the top-heavy HWD.  The pathways mown into our watermeadow are in danger of closing up due to overhanging foliage. The Bellvine is also dragging it down; and the Pendulous Sedge has daubed us with smudges of chocolate brown pollen.