As with the rest of the valley, there are some clumps of HWD appearing in the middle of the wild bits. Mr C is planning on venturing into the ‘interior’ to pull them up as we don’t want such a toxic plant on our patch. They are peeping out of the dry grass to the right of the picture above.
The paths are in a fragile state of mud and algae, as evidenced by Little Venice above. We have lost the turf there, but the grass is growing back on the other paths. I am watching a couple of the plants in Little Venice to see if I can identify them when/if they flower.
So, the green foliage apart from HWD and algae, is buttercup, bedstraw, dock, and clumps of sedge, which are evergreen. It’s exciting to see plants coming back to life again, along with bees, and also wolf spiders running over dry grass heaps.
It’s very interesting comparing today’s picture with December’s. On the face of it not much different. However, the green splashes are more vibrant and luxuriant. And the reason is, I think, because they are different plants.
Today
December
In December the nettles, a duller green, were still holding out over the other side of the valley. They have died back over the winter and are much greyer in colour where they are visible. You will notice the bright green patches are also lusher in texture and that’s because it’s the return of the arch-villain Hemlock Water Dropwort. HWD has an early start and early demise, sinking fast after its deceptively pretty lacey flowers have finished, and then being swamped by the beanstalk-high Reed Canary Grass.
In the picture below you can see in the top right especially, the fronds of HWD. In the centre of the picture are some remaining nettles – you can see their individual leaves of a duller green. Also, note the dead grass, looking very hay-like.
The valley today is windswept and rainy as yet another storm blows in. The grass is flattened, and the green clumps are tangles of bindweed tumbling over the skeletons of hemlock water dropwort and other foliage, their white bells scattered over the valley. The far edge is hemmed with a flourish of bracken. Any brown you can see is dead HWD. There are some frothy white flowers in the distance, but I’m not sure what they are, possibly meadowsweet, but I’ll have to investigate when the weather improves. Finally, there are some swathes of purple, which is willowherb, probably the great willowherb that has been in our patch. Compared to last month, the valley is greener and lusher, generally, due to all the rain we have had.
To brighten up the post, here is my best goldfinch photo so far, which I took the other day, when we were doing the Big Butterfly Count. It is sitting near the top of one of the sea buckthorn trees.
Down in the stream, it’s a bit crowded this year. We usually clear an open path for the water, in case of any flash floods, but since finding the unconfirmed dead water vole, we have removed this job from our ‘to-do’ list for the time being. This is because they live in reed beds alongside water courses and eat grasses and herbs.
As a result the stream is now grown over with vegetation. Many are previously mentioned – Reed Canary Grass, Branched Burr-reed, and the odd Hemlock Water Dropwort. But there seems to be a new kid on the block.
Meet Wild Angelica. A robust clump with red celery-style stems and lush green leaves like a rose-bush growing in the stream. I was worried she was going to be a Hemlock variant and in a way, she is, being an Umbellifer with cow parsley style flowers.
However, the leaves are completely different – perfectly leaf-shaped, in pairs with a single leaf at the tip of each branch – and the hollow stem is crimson. Some of the HWD have red or red-mottled stems, but those ones tend also to have red-tinted leaves. However, here’s the thing, our Angelica is in a lot better shape than the HWDs, which have all keeled over by now. Her flowers are fairly feeble, but they are just coming into bloom. (I’m secretly hoping she will seize control of the valley from the army of toxic HWD, but it’s early days.)
In this picture, you can see how the Wild Angelica has taken over that part of the stream.
Also, you can see some of the white flowers.
Candied angelica used to be used as a cake decoration, but I’m not taking any chances with beginner’s foraging.
In this picture you can see another 14-spot ladybird with an aphid near the top of the right-hand branch.
I’ve heard of blue bottles, but this is a green bottle. It eats pretty much the same things as blue bottles – dead and decomposing plant and animal matter. Here it is resting innocently on some grass. I wondered whether it was going to drink the dew on the grass and found out that adult flies have a more varied diet, including pollen and nectar. Also, they are attracted to flowers that smell like carrion, and the colour yellow.
The Green Dock Beetle appears to be relatively common in the watermeadow. It feeds on dock and sorrel. Here it is on some bindweed, but there is a dock leaf skeleton next to it.
I spent the morning trimming round the alders we have planted along our back fence. One of them had got strangled with bindweed and had its stem/trunk broken. I weeded a lot of bindweed and stinging nettles and chopped down the hollow stalks of Hemlock Water Dropwort that were leaning against the back fence. I strimmed a pathway across the bank and around the alders so that they had a nice wide margin round them. They are growing fast but were only 1-2ft when we planted them in April. Now they are 2-4ft, but still prone to getting hidden and tangled in the undergrowth unless we keep a check on it. Whilst I was over the other side of the stream, I saw a brown type of damselfly, but didn’t have my camera with me. So, I went out with my camera later and managed to take some photos of grasshoppers and butterflies.
We have had rain over the past three days and wind. The valley and the watermeadow are looking ravaged again, as the Reed Canary Grass has grown tall and fallen over. Compared to last month, you can see the HWD has finished flowering and the valley has tints of pinky-orange where the grass is in flower.
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.
Hemlock Water Dropwort is in its prime right now. Currently standing over 6ft high with frothy white, or sometimes pinkish flowers. Looks amazing but is highly toxic. It is a thirsty plant, thriving along the riverbanks and water meadows. Its stems are ribbed and hollow, its pretty umbrelled flowers looking like innocent Cow Parsley. But don’t be fooled, its heavy-sweet scent seems to smell menacing when you learn how poisonous it is! Its roots, looking for all the world like a bunch of small parsnips, are known as ‘dead man’s fingers’ and are the most toxic part of the plant.
In the first lockdown, I mounted an offensive on HWD and managed to remove around 90% from our garden, but it was difficult. I soon learned that you have to pull up the entire plant, as the roots will sprout again within days, as will discarded stems, so you have to get rid of it quickly. The large heap I made was too moist to burn and they kept sprouting, but once I spread them out a bit they dried out and died.
Nowadays, when I have to tackle any HWD, I wear my facemask as well as garden gloves, as they are so waterlogged that they tend to spray their toxic juice when cut. But rest assured, it will keel over after flowering and be overtaken by the grasses and reeds in the valley. It will dry out and sink to the ground, putting up fresh green mounds of foliage in the early days of next spring.
