Peace in wild places
An easy amble with the Wild on the outskirts of Greater Manchester on the 13th day of my 30 Days Wild experience.
An easy amble with the Wild on the outskirts of Greater Manchester on the 13th day of my 30 Days Wild experience.
It’s been a bumper summer in the Brockholes polytunnel with Lindsay Griffiths and her fellow volunteers providing lots of wild and wonderful plants.
I was schmoozing at a conference in Nottingham yesterday, meeting up with lovely colleagues from around the country who are also 30 Days Wilding.
The Marsh helleborine is a beautiful orchid of fens, wet grassland and dune slacks. Growing in profusion in places, look for reddish stems and white-and-pink flowers.
Russet leaves, fantastical fungi, exciting wildlife – autumn is a feast for the senses, and our region is full of wonderfully wild, peaceful places to experience the seasonal shift.
Look for the deep magenta, star-shaped flowers of Marsh cinquefoil in marshes, bogs, fens and wetlands in the north, west and east of the UK.
As its name suggests, the Marsh violet likes damp spots, such as marshes, bogs and wet woods. It is a low-growing plant with kidney-shaped leaves and pale lilac flowers.
The bright blue, trumpet-shaped flowers of the marsh gentian contrast deeply with the pinks and purples of the wet heaths it inhabits. The New Forest holds a large population of this late-…