Pendulous Sedge Archives - A Year in the Valley

Today in the Watermeadow

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.

Daisy D

06 February 2024

Views

Broad-leaved Dock, Creeping Buttercup, Filamentous Algae, Greater Tussock Sedge, Hemlock Water Dropwort, Marsh Bedstraw, Pendulous Sedge, View

Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

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.

Daisy D

16 June 2023

Flowers

Bindweed, Creeping Buttercup, Hemlock Water Dropwort, Pendulous Sedge, Reed Canary Grass

Pendulous Sedge (Carex pendula)

“Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses are hollow, so what have you found?” – Woodland Trust website.

I can see this is going to be a very useful little rhyme – and I like it a lot! This is clearly a sedge, as it has edges to its stem. We have a large patch of Pendulous Sedge in our watermeadow, which we call the Drunken Forest on account of its lolloping appearance when it gets top-heavy or ravaged by the wind. Nearly a metre tall at this time of year, it’s a very untidy plant, but where does curating stop and gardening begin? It seems we must put up with some untidiness. The RHS says it can become a “troublesome weed in damp gardens”. It’s true that it is one of the plants that has moved into the once-bare patches left by the removal of the HWD. One of the things I find interesting about watching our watermeadow is how the dynamics change each year. Different plants seek dominance in different areas – grasses, sedges, nettles. This year the HWD is trying to make a comeback, and the Pendulous Sedge is also gaining ground with tussocks popping up down each side of the watermeadow.

Daisy D

10 June 2023

Sedges, rushes, grasses

Pendulous Sedge