Last weekend I took my camera with me on a walk round the local park to photograph the seasonal changes.
Surprisingly, autumn has been slow to arrive. I am used to living further inland, but here in Ipswich, on a clear day from the ninth floor, you can see Felixstowe down on the coast 11 miles away.
I have concluded that being closer to the sea has kept temperatures slightly warmer in the local park and hence without a run of adequately cool nights the leaves are still to significantly change colour.
So far the most noticeable change is seen in the horse chestnuts. The leaves have turned crispy and brown, and many have dropped already. Sadly, I suspect the trees are suffering from bleeding canker disease caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv aesculi.
On a more positive note there’s still plenty of colour in the wildflower meadow drifts.
And, self-seeded here and there, the umbels of wild angelica brighten up the shady areas edging the bottom lake.
I wasn’t the only industrious individual stalking the park, the squirrels and jays were busy collecting autumn berries and acorns.
As you may already know earlier this year I left behind my Norfolk home and garden of 12 years and moved south to Suffolk. In actual fact it is a return to Suffolk after 21 years away, but, as yet, I am still in temporary accommodation and it’s a flat with no garden.
As suggested by fellow bloggers I’ve been out and about stealing from other people’s gardens, local parks and even from the shoreline on the Shotley Peninsula. No, not digging up precious specimens in the dead of night, but stealing shots of all the different blooms I’ve spotted on my wanderings. Braving the salty breeze, along with the naturally adapted sea kale (above), I found these petunias and osteospermums surviving at the bottom of a local garden close to the estuary shore.
The bees have introduced me to new wildflowers such as the Devil’s Bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) as well as reminding me that some standard garden shrubs, for example this purple hebe, are also a good source of nectar.
Think of a traditional civic park in the UK and regularly mown grass criss-crossed with paths and dotted with formal bedding schemes springs to mind. A vision surviving from our community minded forebears, the Victorians.
But in the 21st century planted civic spaces in many towns have moved away from this formal interpretation. Perhaps this is partly due to the labour intensive nature of seasonal bedding schemes and therefore the greater expense.
It isn’t just the annual and biennial wild flowers that are important for bees, as in the autumn, when there are fewer blooms around, ivy flowers provide a very important source of nectar. And, this is where the large, venerable park trees supporting their heavy old cloaks of ivy are so important as only established, mature (arborescent) ivy flowers.
Agnes Ashe 