It’s a wild, wild life

I’ve talked about wilding my garden and our wildlife pond. There are so many plants and wildflowers that have popped up through the years since I started doing this. For instance, around the edge of the pond I currently have various wildflowers that come and go as the seasons change, such as dog violet, stinking iris, mullein, various species of poppy. I didn’t plant any of these, they’ve just turned up. Same with the common (yellow) toadflax, which is in flower again for the second time this year. Lovely plant often called “butter and eggs” for its buttery and yolky colours. Common Toadflax flowers Anyway, on our allotment, which is less than half a mile from home, we also see a lot of wildflower. Although allotmenteers tend to refer to these plants as weeds. We get masses, it’s almost a full-time job keeping them down. But, occasionally among the thistles and other nasties, something interesting will emerge, a cowslip here, a toadflax, there for instance. They’re usually dug up too,…