Lady’s slippers by the hundreds if not thousands, hillsides golden with daisies, swards of salvias: Sarah Raven salutes Bob Gibbons, who has dedicated the best part of his life to finding and documenting wildflowers
WE have an interesting relationship with ‘wild’ flowers. Filming a mini BBC series on pollinators 10 years ago, I watched what people did when walking through city meadows in full flower. Wild annuals had been sown in a series of semi dilapidated, inner-city spaces in Sheffield, Birmingham and Leeds. Everyone loved the abundance, but, more than that, the vandalism, graffiti and drug-taking had, at least from those places, totally disappeared.
Some very occasionally picked a small posy to take home (which was encouraged), but no one, in any of the sites, had trashed the flowers. No one biked through them or stamped them down. People dropped far less litter—the meadows were left pretty pristine.
Flowery abundance brings out the best in us and we have a similar reaction to meadows in the wild. We seem to feel younger, more joyful, even elated, when we come across a proliferation of wildflowers. People who have hardly noticed flowers in their whole life are overcome and travel miles to get another ‘fix’. It becomes addictive because it makes us feel so good.
I became an addict as a child when I was taken, at the age of seven, by my botanist father to see the thrift and sea lavender on the Norfolk coast, a couple of hours from where we lived. We followed up with snakeshead fritillaries in the Thames valley at Cricklade and then the mass of miniature pansies and marigolds on the machair in the Outer Hebrides. Later, he took me to see the richness of geraniums, gentians and orchids in the limestone pavements of the Burren in western Ireland and, further afield, we found swathes of crocuses and aconites on the snowline in the Italian Dolomites and roadside cliffs full of the widow iris, Hermodactylus tuberosa, in Corfu.
I now know that wildflower abundances make me feel deeply relaxed and, at the same time, exhilarated and I gather that, for many people, it’s exactly the same.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 20, 2019-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 20, 2019-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
