A Bumper Year for Blackberries

Posted by Richard Moyse, Ranscombe Farm Reserve Manager

At Plantlife's Ranscombe Farm Reserve, the wood-edges and path-sides are fat with blackberries as the summer draws towards its close. The first fruits are already temptingly glossy and black, while behind them the mass of tight, green unripe berries suggests a bumper harvest yet to come.

It looks like it's going to be a great year for our favourite wild fruit. Perhaps it's just the pleasure of a classic British summer showing us everything through rose-tinted glasses, but I think not. The last year's dullness and wet may have made for poor flowering and fruit production, but it provided good growing conditions for a whole range of wild plants. As a result, when the good weather arrived, there was plenty of energy to put into making flowers.

Earlier in the year, Ranscombe's woodlands were a mass of living colour, as orchids and other flowers had a jamboree. That the brambles were also fit and vigorous was obvious in midsummer, as their prickly, arching stems romped across paths and tracks, making it necessary to be out with the strimmer much earlier than in most years. Brambles are nothing if not mobile: questing stems spread out from the centre of the plant, and, where the stem-tips touch the ground, they root to eventually form a tangled, impenetrable mass.

Impenetrable to us, that is, for the dense, thorny cover is a great place for nesting birds such as wrens and long-tailed tits, as well as for small mammals. Young trees, too, if not completely swamped, can grow up through the bramble patch, safely protected from the predations of deer.

The other key to the mobility of brambles is, of course, the thing we love most about them: blackberries. The sweet, juicy berries (more accurately, a blackberry isn't technically a berry, but an aggregrate of many small fruits called drupelets, each with a single seed) are eaten by blackbirds, thrushes and other birds, which unwittingly carry and eventually pop out the seeds some at distance from the parent plant. The droppings in badger latrine pits are often stained dark at this time of year, as the animals fill themselves with as many blackberries as they can find, and the fruit is also popular with foxes, voles, mice and dormice. Even insects like butterflies and wasps will come to damaged fruit to sip at the juices.

It's known that Neolithic people ate blackberries around 5000 years ago, so going blackberrying to make jam, or blackberry vinegar or (a personal favourite) blackberry and apple pie is continuing a tradition as old - if not older - than any other. Brambles are so widespread in countryside and town that they are available to almost anyone for the price of a pleasant hour and a few scratches. So why not grab a bag or plastic tub and head out to your nearest bramble patch and play a small part in an ancient association between people and an indomitable wild plant?

Counting Orchids in North Wales

Posted by Dr Trevor Dines, Plantlife Cymru Conservation Manager

Last Saturday we held a little event in partnership with

the North Wales Wildlife Trust (NWWT) in the village hall at Clynnog Fawr, just below our Caeau Tan y Bwlch reserve in Gwynedd. The idea was to raise the profile of the reserve amongst the local community. I gave a talk about meadows in general, looking at their sad demise and the species we’ve lost, such as Globeflower, as a result. As Caeau Tan y Bwlch is the Coronation Meadow for Gwynedd I showed some slides from the launch of this project at Highgrove and went on to illustrate the botanical interest at the reserve. Rob Booth from NWWT then gave a talk about management of the reserve, which was followed by tea, cake and sandwiches. We had a great turn-out from the local community, many of whom didn’t know about the reserve. There were also Plantlife members, NWWT members, and we made a few new members too.

In the afternoon, we made our way up to the “fields below the mountain pass” (the translation of the reserve name) for the annual count of Greater Butterfly Orchid (Platanthera chlorantha), the main feature of the reserve. Rob and I were not quite sure how to organise so many volunteers – 26 in total – we’d never had so many before! We started out with a tour of the fields, where I pointed out the main flowers to be found. There were Meadow Buttercups, Heath Spotted Orchids, Yellow Rattle, Northern Marsh Orchid, Eyebrights of various types and Lady’s-mantle. I love the latin name for this last one, Alchemilla, as it means “little alchemist” and was named for the pure water that collects in the leaves, used by alchemists in their attempts to turn base metals into gold.  We also looked at meadow grasses such as Crested Dog’s-tail, Yorkshire Fog and Sweet Vernal Grass, which gives hay its sweet scent.

For the orchid count I organised everyone along the edge of each field an equal distance apart and, with a rather military approach, got them all to “sweep” the meadow in one line, tallying up orchids as they went. It’s always slightly hap-hazard, with some parts of the line getting ahead of the others and some people veering off towards their neighbours. It’s amazing how territorial people get about the orchids they’re meant to count and good-natured arguments always break out.

After a lot of counting and tallying-up, and a bit of bickering, we reached a grand total of 1,982 Greater Butterfly Orchids in all – 450 more than last year. 

I love the way it varies each year. There are eight fields with Butterfly Orchids and each has a different character; some have shorter grass and more orchids, others are damper with more marsh orchids, others have longer grass and fewer flowers. Two fields had more than twice as many Butterfly orchids than last year, another had nearly half as many. The reasons are inexplicable, the wonderful mystery of orchids. 

It was a great day and a big success, especially in getting the local community more involved at the reserve. We need to tackle bracken encroachment within some of the fields, so hopefully we can get some more volunteers to help out with this too.

Trevor

Road Verge Campaign: The Cutting Edge update

Its always heart-warming to log on to good news. So thank you Liz Anderson for the following message and photograph posted on our Facebook page:

This is a fabulous example of Central Beds. Road Verge Nature Reserves - such an improvement on last years cutting regime they look fantastic and deserve a well done:

We can't help but agree.

We've also received praise for Isle of Wight Council and South Derbyshire District Council. And there was also this lovely tweet from Carl Cornish:

@cornishca: @Love_plants Photo of common spotted orchids on Notified Road Verge at Eaton Wood, Notts:

Alas, according to Steve James, all was not well elsewhere in Nottinghamshire:

@stevejamesPCC: Upper Broughton's top green planted as a wildflower meadow in 2000 was strimmed completely Saturday morning.

And it was happening on the road verges too:

 

Now this is not to take away from the good work that is evidently being done at Eaton Wood Notified Road Verge. But it does beg the question: should a road verge have to be designated as "Notified" or a reserve in order for it to be managed with a bit more care for our wildlife? Please let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.

Elsewhere we received complaints about Leeds and Worcestershire County Councils:

@WildlifeofLeeds: @Love_plants @leedscc mowing down 1000s of meadow buttercups right now on Roundhay Ring Road


@Blacklaceknits: @Love_plants lovely wild verges along A456 being mown to ground level by Worcestershire County Council. Very disappointing.

And some more "Before and After" images to add to our Gallery of Shame: 

Susie Clark on Facebook: I am currently staying in Staffordshire and on way to Fradley South shops from Fradley village witnessed the decimation of a wildflower meadow into a green flattened area.

Before:

After:

But let's end on a more positive note. We received the following image from Charlie Bloom, of a wild flower garden she created to raise awareness of our meadow and road verge flora. It won the RHS Bronze Medal winning Show Garden at BBC Gardeners World Live.

 

Let's hope the message is getting through. As always you can sign the petition and rate your council on the campaign homepage.

A Discovery at Deep Dale

Posted by Joe Costley, Plantlife Reserves Manager

Yesterday, as I worked with volunteer warden Lee Waterman at our Deep Dale nature reserve in Derbyshire, squally showers swept the fields, carried on winds that were strong enough to bring down branches. 

Under the shelter of beech trees we found a dozen birdsnest orchids, their frail and ghostly beauty accentuated by the stormy conditions.

The photo on the left is one of those self-same orchids, caught in the moment on that very day.

Our Deep Dale reserve is open to the public throughout the year. For more information and how to get there click the link below:

• Deep Dale Nature Reserve

Flowers on the Edge: The Cutting Edge

Its been three weeks since we launched our 'Flowers on the Edge' campaign to help save our road verges and the wildlife they support and the response has been immense.

We've received almost two and a half thousand signatures on our petition so far and it seems your voice has been heard - councils have been contacting us, asking for guidance on how to improve their mowing practices and help conserve our road verge wildlife.

Thank you also for all your stories and photos. We've received too many to print here, but we can provide a taste. First of all, a classic example of what we've been campaigning against. Responding to our call for 'Before' and 'After' photos, Andy Williams of Monmouthshire tweeted us the following:

@andy_tyfelin: @Love_plants Maybe you can help me persuade Monmouthshire CC. This taken today: hundreds of kms treated like this:

Attached was a couple of photos of the B 4293 nr Little Cophill Farm, Chepstow. One before...

And one after...

The difference is stark.

That said, it wasn't all bad news. As we're keen to point out, some councils do an exemplary job and many are now contacting us to find out how things can be improved. Here's a few positive posts we received on Twitter:

@sysengshep: Swindon BC have just NOT mowed the bit of verge near my house that I've been trying to let flower:

@leighbgbf: @BridgendCBC (Bridgend Council) Thank you for not mowing all the roadside verges & letting the beautiful wildflowers flourish

@SebInTransition: This verge in #Stroud was left while others were mowndown:

As you can see, we can make a difference! If you've not already done so, please visit our Road Verge Campaign site here and sign the petition and please keep your photos coming!

We'll have another Flowers on the Edge: The Cutting Edge update this time next week.