Community seven

Seven colourful squares taken in the community garden in the Caroline Street car park, looked after by Veg on the Edge. Herbs: thyme, sage, mint and chives; bright yellow marigolds, perhaps (keep bugs away?), strawberry plants and something cabbagey that might be sea kale. (It has white flowers and I think the orange flowers also visible belong to something else.) Mint is tenacious, isn't it? There is plenty in the beds but also some forcing its way through the wall!

Pastel blues

One of the annual borders at Harlow Carr Gardens lent itself, I felt, to a soft pastel treatment.

Up close

It's rewarding to get up close and personal with some of the flowers in Harlow Carr Gardens. There's a wondrous variety of colour and form and some lovely juxtapositions too. 

Blue poppies are fairly rare and difficult to grow successfully. Harlow Carr have some beside the stream, though they were past their best when I visited. 

Lily ponds

Harlow Carr Gardens has two lily ponds: one a formal, symmetrical rectangle and the other a small pool surrounding by decking, where children can study the pond life. Both beautiful in different ways and both currently full of water lilies, though they were barely out on such a cold, grey day. They need a little sunshine before they will fully show their beauty. 

Containing my excitement

They do such a wonderful job of planting up containers at Harlow Carr - a masterclass in how to combine planting, and something I never manage to replicate. The secrets seem to be: go big, restrict the colour palette and use a variety of different leaves. Oh - and as any photographer knows, there is magic in threes... 

... though I have four photos I really can't choose between...  😬

A visit to Harlow Carr

Visitor attractions are gradually starting to reopen in the UK, mostly with booking systems and social distancing measures. It wasn't a hard decision for me to make my first proper trip out a visit to the RHS gardens at Harlow Carr. It is, after all, one of my favourite places and usually furnishes me with some reasonable photos. Of course, when you book ahead, you can't rely on the weather and it was disappointingly drizzly and cold. Never mind, the gardens are looking wonderful and it was worth making the journey. 

I don't recall seeing the stag sculpture before. I really liked it. On the other side of the path there were similar sculptures of a doe and a fawn but, without the dark background, they didn't show up well enough for a photo.  

The long borders are starting to fill out and the streamside is at its best right now, with huge candelabra primulas providing some colour.  

A moorhen chick had boldly strayed quite a long way from its parent.

There are some new beds full of 'annual' mixes - rather prettily colour-restricted: one predominantly blue and white; another blue, white and yellow; another yellow and purple - all very effective in such large drifts. 

There are attractive little 'set pieces' all around too; I liked the solid pot and the soft grasses together. 

Old stone steps leading up to a bench were hard to capture in a photo as it was a dark little corner, so I am quite pleased with this one after some careful processing. 

Learning about wild plants

I didn't know what either of these two wildflowers were. I was attracted to them for very different reasons. The first just struck me as being rather artistic and interesting, its spiky red right-angled stems and bright yellow flowers contrasting with the backdrop of dark water dotted with flecks of spume. It has taken me a long time to identify it but I believe it's called wall lettuce (see HERE). It was growing in a crack in the concrete of the aqueduct, not quite a wall but almost.  

The one below really stood out, the colour a piercing blue. I thought at first it was some kind of forget-me-not and, indeed, it is loosely related but I have now identified it, fairly confidently, as green alkanet. (See HERE). Apparently it's a pernicious weed that you don't really want in the garden, though here by the side of a lane against an old stone wall, it brought cheer to a dark spot. 

I love learning new things. 

One of those days!

The rain came, after a spell of hot, sunny weather, and not just rain but wind and thunderstorms too. It wasn't enticing to go out. On top of that I had a few days of feeling rather fatigued and achey - nothing serious and hard to tell if it was actual or simply a result of feeling fed up of the pandemic and the world in general... Anyhow, when I felt a little better and the rain stopped, I decided I should make myself have a walk, just my usual local circuit of river and canal, travelling light with only my phone. 

I read somewhere recently that you can take photos on an iPhone by pressing the volume control. I decided that might be easier in some situations than reaching for the white 'blob', so I tried it. It was only when I got home that I realised I'd taken screen shots and not proper photos. Doh! Never mind, they weren't going to be masterpieces anyway. 

Hirst Weir was in full flow after the rain and a group of kayakers were having a well-earned break after battling the river. I wonder if they carried the boats past the weir or if they tried white-water rafting? I hope not the latter, as it must be quite a dangerous spot with so many rocks and no clear channel through.

My walk threw up a few mildly interesting nature notes: 

a tall and striking plant by the river's edge that I didn't recognise, in appearance not unlike a foxglove but with bell-shaped flowers. It appears (after consulting my wild flower book) to be a giant bellflower. (I might have guessed!)

The local cormorant had taken up a roost in the river by Roberts Park.

The new nature reserve's wildflower meadow is rampant, though hard to tell if there are any interesting species yet. It seemed to be mostly thistles and ox-eye daisies. 

As I was returning along the canal towpath I spotted another tree newly collapsed and blocking much of the width of the waterway;  a victim, perhaps, to the recent drought followed by the strong wind and rain.  The kayakers, by now on their return journey and choosing the canal rather than battling upstream against the fast-flowing river, were having a little difficulty finding a way past the obstruction. 

Poppies

It's poppy season. My social media feed has been filled with pictures of cornfields full of red poppies. The flat agricultural land in the Vale of York seems to be a fertile area for them and they are breathtaking. I half-wondered whether to go in search of them but, until some cafés and public toilets open, I am reluctant to venture very far.

The allotments belonging to Shipley College, where horticultural students are usually busy at work, have been largely neglected since the start of the lockdown as the College has been closed. I noticed the other day that a wildflower meadow seems to have sprung up - and yes, it has a few red poppies, in amongst a mass of straggly yellow crucifers of some kind. That's the nearest I'm likely to get to a field of them.

In my own back yard, I've had a mass of yellow Welsh poppies, self seeded into the cracks in the paving. They were really cheerful, though a spell of wet and windy weather has trashed them. They did make hanging the washing out a bit of a dance, trying to avoid stepping on them!

HB details

A few details that caught my eye during my wanderings around Hebden Bridge. The clock was installed on St George's Street to mark the Millennium in 2000. It has rings of orbiting planets that move around the clock face.

I spotted a round arched window in a building that I think is known as Machpelah House.

Who wouldn't like a turquoise door surrounded by pink rambling roses?

The prow of a canal boat moored on the Rochdale Canal.

Detail of another narrowboat - with daisies on the canal bank.

And another pink rose. I liked the delicacy of the flower against the gritty stone of the gatepost it was growing over.

Joyful exuberance

Beyond Saltaire, the main road down into Shipley town centre is lined with business units, most of which have had a facelift in the last year or so, with new cladding and paintwork. It all looks a good deal smarter as a result. There is a small patch of waste ground between the units, which had some scrubby trees that have been felled. It has opened up a glimpse of a view over to the old mills alongside the canal and up to Baildon on the hill beyond. Red, pink and white valerian has sprung up. It's a (garden escaped) weed but it adds some joyful exuberance to the boxy industrial feel of this stretch of road. It also does a neat job of hiding the self-storage containers that have recently been squeezed in to the space behind. 

The calm of the lake

It's not very big but Tong Park Dam is an oasis of calm, not far from the residential areas of Baildon, so it's a popular spot with families and dog-walkers. Saltaire Angling Club owns the fishing rights so there are often a couple of fishermen sitting quietly on the banks. There was a pair of mute swans but they never came anywhere near me, so they are just white dots on the photo! There was also a family of moorhens, with three little chicks whizzing around like clockwork toys. There was very little wind (for a change!) and a heavily clouded sky lent a steely look to the water. A couple of patches of water lilies added some grace to the scene.

To Tong Park Dam

After I'd visited the Hall Cliffe Community Garden in Baildon, I walked down Ladderbanks Lane, past some very gracious old Edwardian villas and some quite attractive, modern 'executive detached' houses. Then I took an old footpath down to Tong Park Dam. The path is wonderfully overgrown, almost like a tunnel in parts, with huge oak trees underplanted with holly and hawthorn. The surface is lined with worn flagstones and the whole path is quite low down between banks, making it, I guess, a holloway: a sunken lane. There was once a mill at Tong Park and the lake was its mill dam, so perhaps the footpath was a route to work for some of the millworkers.

At the end of the path, the view opens out over the lake, with what must be one of the most attractively-sited cricket grounds in the area, sadly lying idle this summer.

There were some ponies in a field and, though they were quite small, I noted they had feathered feet like shire horses. I've done a little research without really reaching any conclusion but I see that gypsy horses, bred to pull the brightly painted Romany caravans, have a similar look so these horses may have some gypsy heritage.

Much of the area around Tong Park Dam is rich in wildflowers so it was no surprise to see some beehives, with honey bees flying in and out.

Nor was I surprised to see yellow rattle growing, a semi-parasitic annual that feeds off the nutrients in the roots of grasses. It therefore has a weakening effect on grasses and enables species diversity and a stronger growth of wild flowers. This is turning into a nature walk...

Hall Cliffe Community Garden

Seeking a change of scene, I drove the few miles over to Baildon the other day for a walk. It was quiet, still under lockdown, with few shops open yet so there was ample space to park in the village centre.


Just opposite the parish church there is this little gem of a community garden. The site was originally the tarmac playground of the church school. When the school closed, the land lay unused. In 2004 it was leased from the Council by volunteers, who created - and continue to maintain - this lovely, accessible garden. It really is beautiful.

There were several mums and dads there with little children who were delighting in exploring the winding paths and the small playground at one end. I can imagine the garden is well used and much appreciated by local residents.

Several of the beds were planted with carefully colour themed plants. I seemed to be attracted to the purple and yellow ones!

I wasn't quite sure what the yellow-flowered plant was but I've checked out my guess and it is an evening primrose, tall and slender. The cheerful purple one with the attractive markings is a variety of  geranium.

Fragrant honeysuckle tumbles over a wooden arbour:

and the lovely roses are in bloom.