Woodland flora

Having endured a life long battle to grow cyclamen successfully in the UK it is an absolute joy to see them growing wild in the woods over here in France.

On a recent walk around the village and back through the Bois du Temple, we discovered these beauties providing ground cover in the shade of the trees.

I'd love to replicate it in the garden but calculating the number of tubers we would need is beyond me - and, I fear, beyond the stretch of the purse strings!

I'll just have to content myself with the pleasure of seeing them in the natural setting, under the tree canopy, where, after all, they look their best.

Wildflowers of Braye

This posting is really an excuse for me to indulge in my favourite subject; wildflowers...

The other morning I took a walk along the lane to look how the wheat was coping with all this dry weather. I soon found myself sidetracked by the proliferation of wild-flowers in bloom along the edge of the field.

The following is a list, by no means exhaustive, of the flowers I saw, all within 150 metres of our house..

From the top, left to right on each row, the flowers are:

Lesser Centuary,  Bird's Foot Trefoil

Vipers Bugloss,  Toadflax,  Agrimony

White Campion, Goats Beard

Spreading Bellflower, Hedge Bedstraw, Wild Mignonette

Larkspur with poppies, Pignut (or Burnet Saxifrage - not sure), Larkspur

Sainfoin, Marbled White butterfly on Lucerne

A magnificent display of nature at it's best..