Plants along the towpath – August
Our gardening correspondent Lee Senior continues his bi-monthly series.
AS SUMMER marches towards its final hurrah for this year, our towpaths and riverbanks are absolutely teeming with rich floral variety and insects aplenty.
The quietness of the canal bank offers a perfect setting for standing still and listening to the buzz of insects that gorge on nectar-rich beauties such as the violet blue vipers bugloss ( Echium), common in chalky areas, or the closely related borage or comfrey.
The humble bell-shaped, bluecoloured harebell ( Campanula rotundifolia) looks rather dainty but don’t be fooled. This is a resilient flower and I’ve seen it hanging on in many windswept locations over the years. Harebells prefer dry conditions and it would look good in a rockery or even a window box or container.
A more dramatic impact is provided by the yellow-flowered, eye-catching evening primrose ( Oenothera).
This prolific self- seeder once tried to colonise a former allotment of mine!
At ground level, in grassy areas – perhaps near locks and marinas or canalside verges – the ubiquitous red and white clover is rampant. It is of course also loved by bees, including honey bees.
By total contrast the strikingly tall meadowsweet insists on damp locations, ditches, watersides and other such locations.
Standing at more than a metre tall, the creamy white flowers make a fine sight. As the name implies, the flowers do give off a lovely sweet aroma!
Some other quite tall and common white-flowered hedgerow and grassland plants at this time of year include: wild carrot, whose leaves do indeed have a carrot aroma; cow parsley; and the poisonous hemlock, with its repulsively smelling foliage when crushed.