My meadow

At this time of year the notices go up that long grass on roadsides must be cut  before it becomes a fire risk.  Not only do people clear the verges they cut under their olives too.  From early morning, I’m talking around 6 am, till lunch time we hear strimmers, its the signal summer is coming.  

I’ve told you before Mr FF likes country music and the more stupid the lyrics the better.  He keeps playing and singing along to In the Field of Opportunity its Ploughing Time Again, it drives me mad. Now he’s changed ploughing time to strimming time, it’s no improvement.

There are so many wild flowers in the orchard,  I want them to seed before we mow them down so once again MrFF has cut paths through the long grass, we and the cats can get around easily, no wild flowers have been harmed.  

Recently a friend directed me to a free plant identification app PlantNet which I downloaded.  It’s easy to use and covers Europe so I’ve checked out quite a lot of things I was never sure about including wild flowers, or as the app calls them weeds.  

These are gladiolus italicus, field gladioli, for me much nicer than the cultivated ones.  There are about a dozen in the orchard, I’d like more, hundreds more.  There are tiny sweet-peas, herbs, grasses, so many varieties I have yet to identify from alpines to big daisies.  I’ve been making a wild garden where we used to burn our cuttings, moving a few things from the borders and throwing down seeds but I might as well let nature take over, I could never reproduce this colourful display that has established all on its own.