The Wildflower Meadow — Alice Frances

This weekend we spent some time in the wildflower meadow 🌸🌺🌷🌾at High Beeches Garden. The meadow has been there for at least 145 years, most likely longer and it is a natural acid wildflower meadow. The natural 🌷🌾 part is important - it has been growing all by itself for all these years - the only help it has had is being cut once a year, and the hay removed 🌾. Many wildflower meadows you see and hear about now have been purposely planted (rumour has it Prince Charles 👑 carefully cultivates his at Highgrove), but the one at High Beeches grows every year, without any help at all and is really quite magnificent.I love it most at this time of year, as it is completely covered in ox-eye daisies 🌼 - I always associate June with daisies 🌼 (my birthday is today - hurrah! and June and my birthday mean the daisies are out. But I actually know very little about the rest of the flowers 🌷 and grasses 🌾 that make up the meadow (there are 45 wildflowers and 12 grasses!) so we went on a little wildflower hunt through the meadow, Pip and Barney 🐶 came too.In between Pip and Barney 🐶digging holes where they weren't supposed (there was a stern telling off) we found a number of quite delightful flora 🌷🌻. So I know the daisy 🌼 - the ox-eye daisy or leucanthemum vulgare is a larger version of the common daisy, and I can recognise the sunshine yellow of the buttercup 🌻. I also recognised the purple of the clover 🍀 flower once it had been pointed out, and there are many lovely little purply orchids 🌷- dactylorhiza fuchsii .Other wildflowers we discovered were the knapweed centaurea 🌺(I have looked at these for years and have had no idea what they were) and the same goes for the little yellow, common birdsfoot trefoil lotus corbicula 💐 (I think quite a hard name for a very charming flower).But the yellow rattle rhianthus minor 🌱 is completely new to me, and so was the common twayblade listers ovata 🌾. There really are all sorts, and it can be very easy to miss them - but we did spot the tiny lesser stichwort 🌸.I have to say we didn't even begin on grasses 🌾 (I have some vague grass knowledge from Pony Club - the times when it was raining and we sat inside and learnt about things our ponies were and weren't allowed to eat) - and grass is for another day.The meadow is changing all the time and is really very beautiful - do go and see the daisies 😍🌼!And if you want some more information have a look at High Beeches Garden blog.Alice xxx

Jun 13 The Wildflower Meadow

Jun 17 The Viaduct

Jun 11 That Coat