Go on a spring wildflower hunt
Notice a new bloom this weekend
Forget Easter eggs… this week I’m challenging you to go on a wildflower hunt and notice something new.
The sunshine here has been few and far between lately, but lots of flowers only show their faces in the sunshine, so I recommend going out in search of blooms when it’s sunny if you can.
If you don’t spot anything new on your search, maybe you can find out something new about a flower you see all the time. I bet you can unearth some fun facts about daisies, dandelions, violets or magnolia if you go looking!
Report back on your flowery finds in the comments, or in the chat thread I’ll be sharing on Sunday.
Here are a few flowers I’ve spotted lately to inspire your hunt…
Wood Anemones (Anemonoides nemorosa)
Wood anemones are a good indicator of ancient woodland as they grow and spread really slowly (six feet per 100 years apparently!). I might do a whole newsletter about these flowers at some point, as they are one of my favourites and really quite special.
Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) & Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna)
I was thrilled to spot my first cuckooflowers of 2024 last week - you can read about this fascinating flower in my post from last year.
I’ve been seeing lesser celandine for a while already, but when the sun is out the yellow flowers really come into their own.
Cuckooflower and GREATER celandine (pictured below, not to be confused with LESSER celandine, pictured above) are both linked with the arrival of particular birds. Greater celandine’s botanical name is Chelidonium majus - ‘Chelidon’ is Greek for ‘swallow’ and the plants typically bloom around the time swallows arrive back in the UK. I’m sure you can guess what cuckooflower is named after!
Confusingly, lesser celandine and Greater celandine aren’t even related… Greater celandine is in the poppy family and lesser celandine belongs to the buttercup family. (Thank you to Emma from
for pointing out I’d got the two a bit confused in the first draft of this email… you know by now I’m no expert, especially when it comes to Latin names, so please do always feel free to pull me up on my errors so we can all keep learning!)
Wild geranium
I’m not sure if this is hedgerow crane’s-bill (Geranium pyrenaicum) or dove’s-foot crane’s-bill (Geranium molle) but the almost-neon flowers always catch my eye in the sea of green leaves along the banks of the Medway. I need to go back and investigate, as I think the flowers and leaves of hedgerow crane’s-bill are a lot bigger than those on dove’s-foot.
Cherry Blossom
The Japanese cherry blossoms are looking especially spectacular where I live at the moment and the sweet cherry are catching up fast. Various plum varieties are also in bloom right now, and I spent some time a couple of weeks ago comparing cherry plum with blackthorn flowers.
Glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa luciliae)
This is a new-to-me flower. These pretty flowers are native to the mountainsides of west Turkey and I spotted these on a recce for last week’s nature journaling walk (in the grounds of Archbishop’s Palace in Maidstone), so while I don’t think they are wild, I included them here because I don’t want you to be put off if the only flowers you can find near your home are in the front gardens of your neighbours.
Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum)
Comfrey is native to Europe and Asia and I’ve grown to love it since we got our allotment, as you can use it as a natural fertiliser! Right now, along the river near my house, there’s tons of what I believe is Russian comfrey - a naturally occurring hybrid of two wild species: common comfrey and prickly comfrey.
Primrose (Primula vulgaris)
The name primrose comes from the Latin 'prima rosa', meaning 'first rose' as they are one of the first flowers to bloom in spring. Primroses also have a lot of folklore associations and are often linked to fairies!
Join in with the Great British Spring Clean
While you’re on your flower hunt this weekend, why not take some bin bags and join in with Keep Britain Tidy’s Great British Spring Clean campaign?
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Cuckoo!
This week I’d like to encourage you to look out for a pretty flower I very much associate with this particular time of year. Cuckooflower is said to bloom at the same time the cuckoo calls in spring. It’s also known as Lady’s-smock, which Robin Harford
Get to know our precious pollinators
I love bees, but they do tend to get all the credit for pollinating our plants… (and according to The Wildlife Trusts, honey bees are likely responsible for pollinating between 5-15% of the UK's insect-p…
The comfrey near our flat in the summer is always absolutely humming with bees!
Still buried under snow in my neck of the woods but will keep this post in mind when the green stuff finally starts growing!