Wildflowers in the Garden

The wildflower meadow is still looking wonderful, full of seed heads and grasses and humming with insect life.


The garden is full of wildflowers too.


The Ivy leaved Bell Flower, Wahlenbergia
hederacea is a delicate, trailing perennial of damp ground.  It has pale blue flowers in June and the leaves are rounded with lobes like tiny ivy leaves.  It is not that common in the south east of  England.









Small Cow-wheat, Melampyrum sylvaticum.
A straggly annual,semi parasitic on the roots
of other plants and an indicator of ancient
woodland.
It has a relationship with the Wood Ant.  The
flowers produce a sugary liquid from tiny glands
below the petals that the Ants are attracted to
and feed on.  The seeds of the plant are very
similar in appearance to the cocoons of the ant and are transported back to the nest where they can grow.
It is a food plant of the caterpillar of the rare
Heath Fritillary Butterfly.

Musk -mallow, Malvia moschata.
A hairy perennial  with pretty pale pink
flowers in July and August found in dry
grassy places.