One of my favourite things to photograph in winter is a frost-encrusted leaf. Where the frost remains long enough it allows for us non-early risers to enjoy some at lunchtime (to look at, rather than eat).
On the morning of Thursday 8th December I could hear sycamore leaves falling in the garden. There was a thick frost, the trigger for these leaves to let go.
At a nearby nature reserve I found this yellow hawthorn leaf, a colour hawthorn isn’t really known for. It’s one of the most underrated trees, despite its prevalence, and ecological and cultural value in England.
The image doesn’t do the real thing justice but even lichens get frosty sometimes. This is a little cluster of oak moss lichen that had fallen from a tree.
Happy #30DaysWild! As per the last couple of years I’ll be taking a macro photo – an image greater than 1:1 lifesize magnification – every day in June. I call it #30DaysMacro.
On Sunday 28th May I forced myself, though tired, to go for a walk in the Arun valley in the South Downs. The aim was to try and distract myself from Everton’s final day game against Bournemouth, where my team could be relegated from the top division of English football for the first time in…
On a recent trip to Ireland, my Mum and I spent some time at a garden centre trying to find hedging plants. Having been poisoned by cherry laurel once, and having professionally removed a lot of it, that was not on the agenda. Instead, I was looking along the lines of a good old conservation hedge mixture, with an eye on the local ecosystem.
Northern Mayo is dominated by species like birch, hawthorn, rowan and willow. At the garden centre I was impressed by the beds of saplings where bundles of hawthorn or beech were available for the cost of 1 Euro a whip.
What interested me was that hawthorn wasn’t actually available whereas ‘whitethorn’ was. Don’t be confused for too long, as this is the same species: Crataegus monogyna. The woman who ran the garden centre didn’t understand me quite a lot of the time and then thought we were American. That’s a new one! Either way, we bought 10 whitethorn and 4 potted hollies (Ilex aquifolium) for two separate areas of hedging. Again, these are two species native to the landscape they were being plopped into. This is not an ethno-nationalist statement, it’s considering what will take in the soil, hydrology and what will benefit local wildlife most.
How I plant a hedge
I have been planting native mixed hedges since 2011, usually on public land like parks or nature reserves. I don’t go in much for extra things like plastic weed matting or anything like that.
The hawthorns were going into an area that had just been cleared of bramble, nettle and hogweed by my uncle. We’re fairly sure this area might have been used to grow potatoes by previous residents.
I began by breaking up the ground with a mattock, using both sides of the head to break the soil and to axe through the roots of nettle, bramble and hogweed. When I use a mattock I don’t wear gloves as it gives better grip. The mattock should be directed between the feet so as not to take a chunk out of your shin.
I laid the whips out (with help from my Mum) and planned to put 5 to a metre, but it ended up being about every 12 inches. I’m not fussed on doing this perfectly, the main thing is they survive. When the roots are in and covered by soil I press with my hands, not feet, as sealing the ground can block the space for gases and water to move through, potentially reducing oxygen to the plants.
Hawthorn blossomon Dartmoor
Hawthorn in Irish folklore
Whitethorn, as they call it in Mayo, is a significant tree in Irish culture. This article by Marion McGarry tells you a lot about hawthorn’s place in Irish culture. Unfortunately it is seen as, well, unfortunate.
Then again, if it’s bad luck to cut them down it must be a really good idea to plant so many of them!
After a year of lockdowns and Covid waves, I managed to visit London again for a couple of days in what could be the wettest May on record in the UK. May can often be unsettled and is still spring after all, so we shouldn’t be too surprised. That said, I’ve never known it this stormy.
Camberwell Old Cemetery
London is renowned for its wild cemeteries with Nunhead being one of the most famous. One of my favourites is Camberwell Old Cemetery, a haven for uncommon local bird species like green woodpecker, stock dove and mistle thrush. These are species which like open, parkland style habitats with rich grasslands alongside older or veteran trees to nest in.
St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Shard as seen from the cemetery
It has some good views of London’s skyline in places, with quite interesting correlations between tombstones and skyscrapers.
A Victorian gravestone resting against the stumpof a horse chestnut
This isn’t something that happens by accident. I can’t tell you how many times in the past I lobbied for these grasslands to be allowed to grow where possible or appropriate. Many times in May I would walk through and find the evidence of strimmed grass where flowers had flourished days previously. It’s a matter of communication with grounds staff but also the political will from people in managerial and leadership roles. There’s also the matter of complaints, the sense of things being ‘unkempt’ and ‘wasteland’.
The demand to mow everything is ingrained in English society. It’s a destructive tendency that reduces biodiversity on many levels, however much unintended. The success of initiatives like #NoMowMay are a sign that things are beginning to change and ecological literacy is developing in society. In places like Camberwell Old Cemetery it’s a ‘no-brainer’ because this is old meadowland and it’s been grown and cut once a year, or so, for hundreds of years.
It’s not just in the grasslands that flowers are appearing at this time of year. Many of our trees are angiosperms (flowering plants) and horse chestnut is one of May’s most attractive.
Up close these flowers can look like orchids, sometimes.
In England we have a tree that is also named after the month. One of hawthorn’s folk names is ‘may’. The ‘haw’ refers to the fruit, the ‘thorn’ the tree’s prickly nature. I wonder if the climate crisis may turn hawthorn into ‘april’.
It’s an exceptionally good tree for invertebrates.
In Czechia, my friend Karel recommended checking the flowers of hawthorn if you’re looking for insects. He wasn’t wrong. This tree was covered in large beetles, hornets, wasps, butterflies and bees, all nectaring on it. We lack that biomass and diversity in the UK, perhaps because we stopped allowing our grasslands to flower. At least we now have #NoMowMay to help us on our way.
There’s an old hawthorn growing in my family’s garden. That evening I had a look for invertebrates on the shrubs and flowers. It was a relief, in a way, to find the flowers of the hawthorn were being pollinated by a marmalade fly. Our hawthorn still has something to offer in the wettest of Mays.
A recent walk along the the South Downs on a hazy day with hawthorns. They tough it out in some of the most intensively managed landscapes the UK has to offer.
A hawthorn stands alone, overlooking the folding Downs as they run deeper into West Sussex.
This hawthorn faces out over the Arun Valley towards Pulborough. The Low Weald is hidden by mist in the north.
Along the South Downs Way the trees show signs of pathway lopping, or an extreme politeness to the thousands of users of the National Trail.
A hawthorn obscuring a village built along spring-lines. The Arun snakes away in the background.
A tanker sits in an open field. I think that’s a hawthorn splodged against the South Downs Way towards Amberley.
A monoculture of wheat (I think) with a single oak on the horizon. Wheat has been grown in the South Downs for thousands of years. It has only become mechanised and intensified in the past 100 years. We may idealise the days of horse and plough in the South Downs but it was a harsh and unforgiving existence. Few people could cope with it today. There were also fewer people to feed.
There was a single break of light over the Downs. The hazy nature of the day makes the photo look like a painting. My friend said it was good that the simple things matter to me, which apparently wasn’t an insult. I agree.
Daniel Greenwood 