My oasis
Growing up and living in the countryside for much of her life, Helen is used to big wide open spaces and loves being outside. She enjoys coming to the Centre for Wildlife Gardening, as it’s like…
Growing up and living in the countryside for much of her life, Helen is used to big wide open spaces and loves being outside. She enjoys coming to the Centre for Wildlife Gardening, as it’s like…
The candlesnuff fungus is very common. It has an erect, stick-like or forked fruiting body with a black base and white, powdery tip. It grows on dead and rotting wood.
This yellow-brown seaweed grows in tufts at the very top of rocky shores. Its fronds curls at the sides, creating the channel that gives Chanelled Wrack its name.
Sometimes called 'Marsh samphire', wild common glasswort is often gathered and eaten. It grows on saltmarshes and beaches, sometimes forming big, green, fleshy carpets.
As its name suggests, creeping bent runs along the ground before it bends and grows upright. It is a common grass of arable land, waste ground and grasslands.
As its name suggests, the Dwarf thistle is a low-growing plant that is almost stemless - its purple, thistle-like flower heads growing out of a rosette of spiny leaves.
Hedge mustard is a tall plant with small, yellow flowers atop tough stems. It likes disturbed ground and grows in hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.
A classic fern of woodlands across the UK, the male-fern is also a great addition to any garden. It grows impressive stands from underground rhizomes, dying back in autumn.
A spring delight, the wood anemone grows in dappled shade in ancient woodlands. Traditional management, such as coppicing, can help such flowers by opening up the woodland floor to sunlight.
Hassan & Asma moved from the Sudan in 1969 as newlyweds, so that Hassan could take up a job at Kings College Hospital. Hassan remembers farming with his father, watering the broad beans, wheat…
The hare's ear is a cup-like fungus that grows in clusters in broadleaved and mixed woodland, often near to the path. Its orange colour makes it quite conspicuous in the leaf litter.
The disc-shaped leaves and straw-coloured flower spikes of Navelwort help to identify this plant. As does its habitat - look for it growing from crevices in rocks, walls and stony areas.