It’s been a long cold winter but spring is in the air at the Lavelle Art Gallery!
We are getting ready for a photo shoot this week and we are looking forward to showing off our brand new shopfront. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks searching for flowers ( not so easy in February ) but struck gold at the Dangan nurseries in Galway where they planted up my window boxes and baskets with a colourful array of primroses and variegated ivy. Continue reading
I took some photographs of wild flowers beside the beach at Tra Mhor last week. I am constantly amazed at the variety of wild plants that find sustenance on the edges of the shore. I thought this plant (above) was a type of thistle with its sharp pointed leaves but when I looked it up later I discovered that it’s a Sea Carrot. The photo was taken after a rain shower so you can see the droplets in the pink flowers which gives it a lovely velvety appearance. The next photo (below) is of the flower head which is white and dome shaped with a tiny red central blossom.
I was pretty sure that the next plant (below) belongs to the thistle family but I checked it later and found that it’s probably a Creeping thistle based on it’s size and it’s soft lilac colour.
The next photo is of some ants which are feasting on the thistle flowers – I’m not sure if its the nectar or the nectar eating aphids that they’re after..
This next image (below) is of some Sea Holly. It’s a bit like a giant thistle with it’s central globe of flowers but these ones are surrounded by large grey blue bracts or leaves.
Sea Holly or Eryngium maritimum was believed to be an aphrodisiac in England in Elizabethan times – ouch! In fact, it was not the leaves that were used but the roots, which were candied. They are named in a speech by Shakespeare’s Falstaff:
“Let the sky rain potatoes;
let it thunder to the tune of Green-sleeves,
hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes (sea holly),
let there come a tempest of provocation…”
The Merry Wives of Windsor’ by William Shakespeare – Falstaff, Act 5, Scene v
The next image shows a group of snails on a holly plant. When I looked closely I began to see dozens of them and the brown scarring and holes on the plants where they had been.
Here’s a close up of one (below) right on the tip of a thorny leaf. I do believe that we made eye contact!
The sun shone late one evening last week when I went for a walk along a beach in Errislannan with my family. This is a beautiful peninsula just south of Clifden. I took some pictures and we collected driftwood and paddled in the water. Unexpectedly, I found a treasure of flowers growing in the area. This is the view looking back down the beach from the furthermost point.
There is no sand here, just stones all rounded by the tidal movements of the sea.
I stopped to photograph this vivid blue plant on a bank along the beach. I am no botanist so I welcome advice on the naming of any of these! Is this one a Scabious?
Here it is again from on top. I love its starlike shape and its jewel blue colours.
I almost missed this next one. There were just two little plants on their own right at the edge of the shore. I’m going out on a limb here to suggest that this might be a wild Orchid..
The next photo is of some Thrift, my favourite plant of all. I am amazed how it manages to grow so prolifically in the most barren of places, it seems to sustain itself from rock alone.
I was surprised by how much it had turned, nearly all the clumps of flowers were a dry honey brown colour (below). I like the line of them still, their tall broad stems and their bobbles of crispy petals.
Here’s one that’s just beginning to fade (below).
This last picture is of a single Thrift flower still in full bloom. There were only a handful of these.
We have been enjoying some exceptionally fine weather here in Connemara. Temperatures reached the mid 20’s and higher last week which is rare for this (or any?) time of year here.
One sign of Summer’s arrival is the appearance of the Summer wild flowers and they seem (to me) to have sprung over night – clover, buttercups, pink grass heads and marguerites, my favourite of all.
Here’s a photo of a clover head, such a lovely colour – somewhere between crimson, pink and purple.
I love the feathery summer grasses, the smell of them, the rustling sound of them and when you look closely, their delicate colours. Here’s an example and below that a couple of seed heads.
Finally, I’ve included some pictures of the Marguerite, one of my all time favourite wild flowers. Their name makes them human – my daughters affectionately call them ‘Big Daisies’. There is a lovely field of these flowers beside the local National school but unfortunately for me, behind a high fence ( photo below taken through the fence ). I resisted an urge to climb in to the field, deciding not to risk injury to myself or my dignity and the possibility of creating a spectacle in view of my daughter’s teachers!
These close ups (below) were taken a few metres away at the roadside which is dotted with these perfect flowers at the moment. Long live Summer!
I took some photographs in the old graveyard in Clifden last week and among them several close ups of the wild flowers on the woodland floor. I included a photograph of the bluebells in a recent post but these were just the most visible plants. On closer inspection, I found a medley of colour and just at my feet!
This first picture is of the wild fuchsia, a plant that is truly synonymous with Connemara and far superior in my opinion, than its cultivated equivalent. I searched for an open flower and found only buds, but how beautifully they hang like ruby earrings. This amazing plant is the longest flowering of all and is found in hedgerows all over Connemara from early Spring right through Summer until the early Autumn.
The next photo is of the Celandine, the Lesser Celandine to be precise. This is a personal favourite, more delicate and humble to me than the buttercup or the primrose.
And one more picture of the bluebell, just to complete this trio of primary colour.
Lastly I have a picture of a dandelion clock, still perfectly intact and below that, a delicate white flower that I was unable to identify – help me out if you can!
