Wild foxgloves on the lane

Wild Foxgloves appear in a new place each year, especially some old patch that has been recently cleared. A corner of rocky earth suddenly gives birth to an abundance of the most exotic of our wildflowers. They nestle under trees and festoon the hedgerows. They peep over the tallest grasses and parade their purply pink lady's fingers up and down the lane.

This year they surround the newly drained meadows on the shores of the lake as a ribbon of vibrant bunting. An odd one grows on a stone wall. Another few wave from the grassy hill. 

It's as if they are cheering us on!!




Check out the Foxglove Lane Gallery for more images

~Another evening amongst the wild Foxgloves~

I've spent many years now photographing the stunning and exotic wild Foxgloves (Digitalis Purpurea) on the lane here. So when I started this blog 2 years ago I named it after them. A regular feature of childhood games, magical drawings in fairy stories and romantic cottage gardens, Foxgloves are an annual blissful treat. 

Being biennial, where they will bloom each season remains a last moment surprise.  Last year the local council sprayed a large corner on the main road and to my amazement dozens of Foxgloves flowered there in the bare ditch. 

Those dormant verges have harboured the wild things during winter. Suddenly all has been revealed again this month in great abundance. Best of all they have scattered themselves all over my wild garden, getting closer to the front door every year.

The mystery and beauty of wild flowers is an endless fascination. The survival of so many Foxgloves in spite of agricultural "progress" and pesticide spraying here and there, is also an inspiration. Resilience, adaptation, showy blooming.......I like to think that's me too.......except maybe for the showy blooming!!




Read more about Foxgloves on the Kew Gardens site here

Digitalis purpurea was named by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his pivotal publicationSpecies Plantarum in 1753. The generic name Digitalis comes from the Latin for finger (digitus), referring to the shape of the flowers. The specific epithet purpurea refers to the colour of the flowers, which are frequently purple (although a white-flowered form is fairly common). Common foxglove is a popular ornamental, and many hybrids and cultivars are available. It is a source of digitoxin, a glycoside used in the drug digitalis, which has been used as a heart stimulant since 1785. It is also well-known for its toxicity, and ingestion of the leaves (usually as a result of misidentification for comfrey, Symphytum officinale) can result in severe poisoning.

Do children have macro lens eyes?

I remember delving deeply into everything.

Collecting pooka snails and ordering them about as they emerged from their shells. Harvesting rose petals and creating watery concoctions to extract their sweet essence. Adding mint leaves into mucky stews and serving them up to the dog.......

Leaving special gifts for the little people. A rhyme wrapped up in a chestnut skin, just the way they would like it. A doll's tea-set cup full of the juice of blackberries, squashed under a stone and decorated with beads from a treasured bracelet.

Elaborate offerrings to entice the faeries out to play.

When the raindrops settled, I saw them in there, dancing and flying about on spectrum coloured wings. Do children have macro lens eyes? Is that the magic we are reminded of when we magnify our world so that all it's ethereal detail is revealed and we are once again enthralled?

Foxglove time!

Ireland's most spectacular wild flower is blooming prolifically on the lane today. The Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, An Lus Mór, reaching up to 150 cm high and hosting up to 75 individual flowers on each stem is everywhere.

I remember so well as a child putting the little flowers on each finger as faery hats or fancy thimbles and the sight of them still has a magical effect today. Although I am drawn to them it is almost impossible to do them justice in my photographs. But who cares, it is sheer bliss just to be amongst them, and I will keep trying!

The lush wild hedgerows of Ballyferriter in County Kerry

Ballyferriter on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry has the benefit of the Gulf Stream, Atlantic soft rains and a relatively under developed and inaccessible landscape. I go there every year for a few days and it is a magical place with mountains, beaches and lovely villages. The local Kerry people simply call it "the Kingdom."

Kerry also has a great number of traditional hedgerows which are crammed with the wild and the beautiful. Huge bouquets of Purple Loosestrife and Meadowsweet, Fuschia bushes laden with flowers falling over swathes of golden Monbretia and wild Roses wrapped up with garlands of pink bramble blossoms. Drunken bumblers and greedy honey bees are stuck into the rich pollen and some have speckles of it all over them. There are so many plants like huge garden borders that even the nettles and docks don't take over. Instead they are part of the meandering whole, in balance and in moderation.

These hedgerows are dying out in Ireland because of pesticides, over cultivation, new fences and building development. I love them. Shouldn't the remaining ones be preserved?

Be a bit more friendly towards the wild things

I know the neighbours despair of my nettle border and my overwhelming gorse mountain but I can't resist including them all in my mixed up wild, cultivated garden. There are so many parts of the country where the verges and the hedgerows are devoid of life. Grass grows, but the diversity that is natural to our Irish landscape has been extinguished. I hate to see those burned patches of ground where farmers have sprayed pesticides. Luckily the immediate boreens around here escape. Most of what I photograph in the wilderness is within a 5 minute stroll of my back door. There are still lots of pockets of this natural beauty in between the lovely formal gardens which now dominate the country both in urban and rural settings.

A combination of hand weeding and mulching takes care of my "garden" proper, where I am trying to grow flowers and pretty things. They have to be protected from the creeping buttercups and the rooty strong grasses, but I am not too fussy about order and grow vegetables, flowers and "weeds" together. Yes I am a lazy gardener and I am pest friendly but I am rewarded by lots of bees, butterflies and other "pests"which make the garden a lively spot! A very chilled approach.......

This evening I am showing off my "garden" and neatly editing out the compost heap and the seeding nettles. Seriously proud!

Nature takes no notice of my mood!

Approaching mid-summer, every wild plant is coming into it's prime. But this morning as I set out to walk, I felt some sadness at the way the earlier lime greens are already turning deeper and the landscape is beginning to clutter up with tall grasses and leaves. I trundled through the rain reprimanding myself a bit for wanting the world to stop turning, for hoping the foxgloves would last a bit longer, for wishing that the light would extend rather than shorten. In a gloomy mood I walked past everything that was happening thinking I am done, there's nothing else to say or see.


Interesting how nature takes no notice whatsoever of these doubts of mine! As I passed a small wall of moss and lichen I started to notice the tiny flowers and ferns in the fairy gardens between the crevices. Cranesbill, yarrow, vetch, and others that I still don't recognise.  I looked at the hawthorn that I photographed in May and saw that the haws were starting to form like small candles. On the blackthorn the sloes are green but well developed. The rain stopped and I persisted with the walk, continuing to see things that I have never even noticed before.

On my way back I was looking forward to the rest of the summer. Visitors coming, swims to be had, courgettes for the first time surviving in the garden. With the camera under my raincoat I increased my speed thinking about the lovely coffee, fried duck egg and spuds that Paddy would be cooking for breakfast. Gratitude was beginning to return....

A love affair between bees and flowers

I spent the evening following the bees in my own garden. They like the Catmint. It is in full bloom and laden with buzzing busy bees. Since trying to photograph them I have become aware of just how fast they move! Most of the photographs were very out of focus because of all this flitting. There are 14 types of Bumble Bee so I can't tell you which one this is. Any experts out there?

Check out Louie Schwartzberg give his TED talk on The hidden beauty of pollination here. He describes the love affair between flowers and bees which has been evolving for 50 million years. The film he shows will really knock you out!

News from Helen Carroll via twitter it's actually a Bombus Pascuorum a Ginger-tailed Bumble Bee. Thanks Helen.