West Cork Wildflowers

Kindness

I’ve had quite a week, and it left me in awe of how, when you live in Ireland, you experience kindness just when you need it. It never fails.

This isn’t the kind of post I normally write but today I am not inspired by castles or stained glass or saints (well, maybe. . . read on) or books or art or archaeology, but by people – the lovely ones who rescue and support you and send you on your way humbled and grateful. Let me explain. [OH – and all the flowers? I don’t know how else to illustrate this post except to construct a thank you bouquet of flowers from my garden and from the wild, all photographed today.]

On Sunday last I set out for Dublin. I was going up for a funeral and a book launch. I like to make this a two day event, staying with my oldest friend in the world, Anne, in Cork overnight. I made it almost to Bandon and all the lights on the dashboard of my 12 year old Skoda Yeti started to flash and the car went into emergency mode, in which it can only be driven a few km an hour.

I pulled over and called my insurance emergency service. It was Sunday evening and nobody was willing to be called out except for Tim, who came all the way from Killarney (an hour and a half away) to rescue me. He towed my car to the Skoda dealership in Bandon, Finbarr Galvin’s, and he took me to the hotel.

I had called the Munster Arms Hotel to be told, by Don, the owner/manager, that he had one room left. Why only one? Zach Bryan was performing in Cork and every room in a 50 mile radius was taken. Don said not to worry, he would keep the room for me no matter how late I got there. I ate at the hotel and fell into bed. In the morning, Don arrived specifically to drive me to Galvins.

Galvins was busy – I got there right when they opened, first thing Monday morning, and there was already a queue of cars coming for servicing or repairs. Grace, at the counter, said she would do her absolute best to get the car seen to today, and reassured me that whatever the problem was, they would find it. She ordered me a taxi so I could explore the delights of Bandon while I waited.

By sheer coincidence Anne, and her husband Jack, were coming to Bandon that afternoon, with their own ailing car. They picked me up and delivered me to the train station in Cork. I was at my sister’s house in Dublin by dinner time.

I made it to the funeral, on Tuesday morning and it gladdened my heart to be there for my friend Ken, who had lost his beautiful wife. Afterwards, Grace from Galvins called me and broke the bad news – it would cost more to fix the car than it was worth. I decided it was the universe telling me it was time for a new car. Back to my sister’s (Aoibhinn) and she took me under her wing and showed me how you buy a car nowadays, having gone through the process herself very recently. You go onto the big Car Store site, use the filters to select what you want to test drive, and make an appointment.

Next Morning, Wednesday, my brother (Fergus) drove me out to the Car Store where Daniel was all set – he had my desired cars lined up and we started by test-driving a Suzuki S Cross Hybrid, a few years old but very low mileage. It had me at Hello. We arrived at 10:30AM and at 1PM I drove away in my new car, thanks to Chloe at McCarthy Insurance who was right on the ball with switching my insurance to the Suzuki. Meanwhile, back at Galvin’s, Orla had taken over from Grace and had found a nearby car recovery service willing to buy the Skoda from me. She arranged for Ger O’Donovan to pick up the car.

On Thursday, I attended the book launch, which was a jolly affair. It was to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Sandford Road Church. David Caron and I had co-written the chapter on the stained glass in the church and George Walsh, who has a wonderful St Francis window in the church, was also there. Here is his St Francis.

On Friday I headed back to Cork, staying over night with Anne and Jack, and visiting, as is my wont, a couple of churches along the way, and marvelling once again at how a) beautiful Tipperary is and b) how long it takes to drive the length of it.

On Saturday I met with Ger O’Donovan in his Ballinascarthy garage (no link, just Google) where he had taken the car, and we retrieved my house keys and all the detritus that cars accumulate. He bought the car outright from me. The relief! I was back home that afternoon.

So – in the course of six days I was plunged into gloom and arrived on the other side in a celebratory mood and so so grateful for the kindness of friends, family, and strangers. Thank you Tim, Don, Anne and Jack, Grace and Orla, Aoibhinn, Fergus, Daniel, Chloe, and Ger. You are all saints stars!

Grove Orchard: My Half-Acre

I did a series of posts, Rewilding my One Acre about my last house, Nead an Iolair, in which I charted over several years all the wild flowers that grew on our property. That included my wildflower meadow (more of a patch in reality) as well as all the little plants that just showed up in the grass and the gravel. 

I want to do the same at Grove Orchard – that’s the name of my new house and it’s a name with some pedigree, deserving perhaps of a future post. So I have been out with my camera, lying in the grass, which is not the greatest choice for someone prone to hay fever, but I grudge my readers no sacrifice. Here is the result and I hope you enjoy it. You can click on Watch on YouTube for full screen.

The music is An Droichead /The Bridge by Liam O’Flynn, used with permission.
It was originally commissioned to reflect the theme of President Mary McAleese’s presidency, ‘Building Bridges’ and performed for her inauguration as President of Ireland. This version features Mark Knopfler on guitar.

Because this is an established garden/orchard, I have included what flowers are blooming now, be they wild or cultivated. And sometimes just leaves, because they are so eye-catching (that Japanese Maple! Those apple blossoms!) and also any critters that hove into view. I don’t know who owns the cat, but he (she?) owns my garden. There’s a twice-daily patrol to make sure all is in order.

By no means is every plant native. Or benign. I have discovered some aliens – Chilean Iris and Three Cornered Leek for example are both non-native but at the moment they are alive with bees so I am reconciling to their presence in my garden. And alas, my Bluebells are not native, but the Spanish imports. Darn.

I have a wilderness area (ok, an unkempt part of the garden) and in it I have discovered Mock Strawberry (Potentilla indica) aka Yellow-flowered Strawberry. It’s rare and invasive and I have submitted a report to the Biodiversity Data Centre.

And I seem to have LOTS of Lords-and-Ladies, aka Cuckoo Pint, or Arum maculatum. It’s native but very poisonous to humans and pets. BUT – birds love it, apparently, so I’ll keep it but keep an eye on it. The Irish name for it is Cluas Chaoin (Kloo-us keen) – it means smooth-surfaced ear and isn’t that just the perfect descriptor? The image above shows both Lords-and Ladies and a Mock Strawberry.

On the whole, the garden is alive with native wild plants – it’s most of what you will see in the slideshow. It’s also alive with birds – I have just downloaded the Merlin App so I know I have far more birds than the ones I can actually see. And I need advice, Dear Readers! A swallow pair is busy building a nest in my garden room – right over the table. I hate to knock it down, but I am not fond of bird poop in my tea. What to do?

Mizen Magic 27: Toor

Tucked away in the north west corner of the Mizen, with access from one meandering boreen, is the townland of Toor. It’s one of our favourite places and we wanted to share it with you, as it was on a visit earlier this week. 

For more on this townland and the surrounding area, see Robert’s post, Mizen Mountains 1 – the Hill of the Foxes. We have borrowed Liam O’Flynn’s transcendent music for this slideshow with gratitude and permission. The Album, The Given Note, is available here. Robert has written about Liam O’Flynn in his post Piper to the End – A Tribute to Liam O’Flynn.

Of course, I can’t resist including some wildflowers, all typical of late August in West Cork. In order, they are Goldenrod and Heather, Montbretia (non-native), Rock Sea-Spurrey, Thrift (no longer blooming), Davil’s-bit Scabious and Knapweed.

Lying In The Grass

It’s one of my favourite things to do, as soon as the wildflowers in my garden start to bloom. These are the early ones – there will be a different set in June and July, although some, such as the Bird’s-foot Trefoil, will persist. All but one of one of these wildflowers is native to West Cork, all have volunteered in my garden, and all have been photographed in the last week. You have to lie down in the grass to see many of them (tiny!), or to see the detail on the flower – but I have done all the work for you so make a cup of tea, settle back, and just enjoy!

The music is by the incomparable, late Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and is titled Turas Go Tír Na nÓg (Journey to the Land of Youth) – Go raibh maith agat, a Mhícheál, agus suaimhneas síoraí.

A plant list follows, in the order in which they are presented. 

Ribwort Plantain (Title slide)

Creeping Buttercup X 2

Common Mouse-ear

Common Milkwort X 3

Common Milkwort, white form

Dandelion clock 

Cat’s-ear X 3 (much more common in my garden than Dandelions)

Yellow Pimpernel X 2

Common Dog-violet X 2

Grasses

Daisies

Thyme-leaved Speedwell and Daisies X 2

Thyme-leaved Speedwell closeup

Daisies

Red Clover

White Clover

Herb-Robert

Cat’s-ear and Scarlet Pimpernel

Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil X 3

Keeled-fruited Cornsalad X 2

Common Sorrel X 3

Ivy-leaved Speedwell* X 2

Marsh Thistle X 2 (Why I don’t do this barefoot)

Lousewort

Common Vetch X 2

Ground-ivy X 2

Common Blue Butterfly

Speedwell (thyme-leaved?)

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill X 2

*Ivy-leaved Speedwell is thought to be an introduced species

One Acre – Three Years On

I’ve been documenting all the wildflowers on my acre in West Cork. I started three years ago with the first post, simply called One Acre and then updated it two years ago with One Acre – One Year On.

The only actual gardening I do is to maintain a herb bed. Apart from that, we get the grass cut and the hedges trimmed occasionally, and a great neighbourhood kid comes to do some very select ‘weeding’ where it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t really believe in the whole notion of ‘weeds’ but I reluctantly accept that we have to keep some areas clear.

Growing in the lawn, from the top: Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Self-heal, White Clover; Bog Pimpernel and Self-heal; Heath Speedwell; the spectacular male flowers of Sheep’s Sorrel

Apart from that I have two approaches. The first is driven by my desire to keep the place as non-manicured as possible and Robert’s desire to have it looking reasonably tidy, or at least not abandoned. This approach is to cut the grass as seldom as I can get away with, leaving all the lawn flowers to flourish in between the cuts. I also leave the boreen/right of way above the house uncut all summer, as this is where the Chamomile (below) grows most abundantly and as it’s getting rarer in Ireland I feel privileged to have it.

The second approach is to set aside part of the garden as a perennial wildflower meadow (below). In planning and maintaining this meadow I have followed best practise as laid out by various experts in creating pollinator-friendly spaces and I am delighted with the results.

I started with a grassy slope and simply didn’t cut it for the first summer. In the autumn I had it cut and thoroughly raked. This is an important step – if you leave the cutting in the grass it fertilises or enriches it, and what you want is soil that is as impoverished as possible.

Above, from the top: Oxeye Daisy; Field Wood-rush; Cat’s-ear

The following summer I just let it grow and it seemed to flourish with all sorts of grasses coming up, as well as Knapweed, Oxeye Daisies, thistles, Sheep’s-bit, Ribwort Plantain, White and Red Clover, Cat’s-ear, and lots of Bird’s-foot Trefoil.

Above, from the top: Red Clover; White Clover; Bird’s-foot Trefoil; Sheep’s-bit; A Painted Lady Butterfly and a Bumblebee on Knapweed

That autumn I had it cut and raked again but this time I introduced the only intervention that the meadow has received. Once the grass was cut and raked I broadcast Yellow Rattle seeds (bought from wildflowers.ie which guarantees to only sell native Irish seeds). Yellow Rattle (below) is a magical wildflower. It parasitises on the roots of the grasses, thinning them out and creating more bare patches where wild seeds can land and germinate. Although it does grow in the wild in West Cork it would be hard to find and harvest enough seed for my meadow.

We have lots of birds who visit our garden but I had never seen pigeons there until I sowed the Yellow Rattle. It was like a shout went out, and they descended in flocks, pecking away at all my precious seeds, with me inside banging on the windows or racing out to chase them away. I needn’t have worried too much – they left enough seeds to have a really good showing the following spring. They self-sow readily and I have now had two seasons of Yellow Rattle working away to reduce the tough grass roots.

Above: I still have lots of grass, of course – an amazing variety – and a vast extent of Ribwort Plantain

I said above this was the only intervention I have made in the meadow, but now that I think of it I have also dug out some large dock plants as it does tend to take over. I have since read that this may have been the wrong things to do as its almost impossible to get all the roots.

Above, from the top: Navelwort; Lady’s-mantle; Knapweed about to emerge; Common Ramping-fumitory; Common Milkwort

We have a gravel driveway, rock walls, a stone terrace with steps, and a small patch of trees and ivy and all provide habitat for wildflowers (above) that spring up unbidden from time to time, some welcome (like Corn Spurrey and the Sharp-leaved Fluellen which is an endangered species) and some not so welcome (like the Verbena bonariensis that is fast becoming a ‘possibly invasive’ species).

Above, from the top: Sharp-leaved Fluellen; Verbena bonariensis; Corn Spurrey

You’ve probably seen photographs of annual wildflower meadows (as opposed to my perennial meadow) full of brilliantly coloured poppies, cornflowers and corn marigolds. What they don’t tell you about these kinds of meadows is that firstly they are a lot of work and have to be re-done every year and secondly that you have to be really careful where you get the seeds as many companies sell imported mixes (marketed as ‘bee-bombs’, for example) which do not serve our native insects well and which have the potential for introducing invasive species. My friend Jack has done a brilliant job on his annual meadow, sowing only native seeds from Sandro Caffola at Wildflowers.ie and the results are spectacular (below).

It takes a bit of a mindset change to see beauty in a perennial wildflower meadow and an acre of land where wildflowers are prioritised. Accustomed as we are to equating a well-mown lawn with tidiness and good management, it might be difficult to look at an expanse of Daisies, Cat’s-ear and Autumn Hawkbit and Smooth Sowthistle (all of which look more or less like dandelions), Bird’s-foot Trefoil and Self-heal and not see ‘weeds’ and neglect.

Above from the top: English Stonecrop; Self-heal; an uncommon white form of Self-heal

But that shift in our perspective? We all need to make it now, if we want to save our pollinators.

Why I Wildflower

Enjoy this slideshow – every one of these flowers is native to West Cork.

Music by Enya, Shepherd Moons