When I wrote the previous post in early September, I’d intended this part 2 to follow quite soon. It’s taken two months for the handwritten notes to become a blog, but in some ways not much has changed. The photos here were taken in September, but as autumn has so far been quite mild, the Subway Strip doesn’t look too different. There are now a lot of leaves, fallen from the sycamore, and fewer flowers, but otherwise it’s more or less the same.
The first photo shows Lungwort, which has thrived in this plot. It provides great ground cover, helping the soil to stay moist and cool in hot, dry periods, as well as giving insects somewhere to shelter. In spring it flowers early, and is popular with bees.
Another plant that spreads well and is popular with bees, but in late summer, is Ice Plant (Sedum). The label is there not only to inform passersby what it is, but also to show the area is looked after.
I’ve thought about adding more detailed labels, but am not sure how long they’d remain in place. For now, I hope the Pollinating Peartree sign is enough. It directs people to Facebook, where they can find a link to this blog.
The photo above shows about half of the Subway Strip, with the subway under the railway bridge just visible top left. In September, there were still a lot of Knapweed seedheads, left for the birds. I thinned them out to keep that balance between ‘tidy’ and wild. They’ve since been cut back, with some stems left upright and others laid under leaves, providing hibernation and shelter areas for small creatues such as beetles, spiders and woodlice.
The end closest to the subway is quite shady, with ivy and nettles. Both are wonderful for wildlife, with ivy providing shelter and late summer nectar, and nettles being a food source for red admiral butterfly caterpillars. But nettles also sting, and are seen as weeds, which probably increases the chances of rubbish being thrown in this corner. They can also take over, swamping other plants, so for all these reasons I cut them back without removing them completely.
To finish, here are some of the flowers that were in bloom or bud in September. From top left, the yellow one is Birdsfoot Trefoil, Borage (still blooming in November), Self-Heal, Yarrow, and, in the centre, a Dandelion bud. Of course!
Dandelion Nature 