June blossoms

Twelve Months of Flowers:  June    Jacob van Huysum

© Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

"A spell of warm sunny weather early this month means that along the lanes, every hedgerow, bush and tree looks as if it is about to burst; and as I stare intently at one hawthorn I can almost see the foliage growing outwards by the minute.  Surely, if this fine weather continues, the trunks, branches and twigs will be unable to contain the green force within, and will simply explode.

On a warm muggy evening, the volcano-like silhouette of Brent Knoll is bathed in yellow sunshine as it pokes through horizontal fingers of cloud.  Opposite, towards Glastonbury Tor, a thick layer of grey fills half the sky, its folds and pleats as untidy as a teenager's duvet.  A broad, squat section of rainbow is just visible in the gap between the cloud base and the distant Mendip Hills, its layered bands of colour illuminating the sky.

…At this time of year, the walls around the parish are suddenly ablaze with a striking flower, red valerian, whose colour and texture remind me of something out of a Laura Ashley catalogue.  For a few weeks, from mid-June to mid-July, this attractive and conspicuous plant is thriving.  It may be called red, but in truth it is a deep pink:…occasionally, a striking snow-white variant appears among its neighbouring blooms.

Like so many of our wall-loving plants, red valerian is an immigrant, originally brought to Britain from the Mediterranean during Tudor times, to adorn rockeries in ornamental gardens.  After a couple of hundred years it managed to escape from confinement, and has since spread across much of England and Wales, though its stronghold remains here in the West Country
.….the stone itself is not a natural feature of the local landscape, but was brought here from the nearby Mendips."

Wild Hares and Hummingbirds  Stephen Moss

(Something to look forward to? if you are having torrential rain in your part of the world.) 

December - "a chord of starlings"

The coming of winter. From Wild Hares and Hummingbirds,  Simon Moss.

"The next morning Jack Frost has returned with a vengeance, and now the scenery really has turned whiter-than-white; white trees, white hedgerows, white grass, white roofs and white sky. This is landscape in crystal form, only punctuated by the staccato notes of black birds as they dash across the sky or gather in the fields: chords of starlings, followed by the occasional crow, jackdaw or rook.  And one brief splash of colour: a flock of goldfinches, whose crimsons and golds illuminate the landscape like a coloured frame added to an old black-and-white film.

Gwyngyed Mountain, Winter   Ogwyn Davies

©  University of Aberystwyth

Later, as the sun sets over Brent Knoll, a low ridge of colour hangs over the Mendips, while a darker, more menacing wave arrives from the west.  A strong, full moon begins to rise, gradually illuminating the flat, white landscape.  A lone buzzard perches on top of a hawthorn hedge, surveying his misty kingdom.  Apart from a distant dog barking, and the hum of the milking parlour at Perry Farm, all is quiet; when it is as cold as this, no bird will waste energy in song.  In the rhyne by the farm a lone heron stands rigid on the ice, as if fixed permanently to the spot.  On catching sight of me he has just enough energy to flap those huge rounded wings and fly away.  I hope he finds some water, somewhere in this frozen land.

Soft, ghostlike, the mist surges westwards from the darkness, creating a blanket of vapour over the layer of snow beneath, like a counterpane laid carefully over a duvet.  As it finally covers the land, the tops of trees and hedgerows poke out as if grasping towards the last few minutes of daylight, before they too are swathed in the mist."

Winter series  Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

© the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust