Banner Cross Garden Update September 2021
You may have noticed that the the garden around the gas meter is full of weeds. Well it is. This is because the "soil" has been brought in from elsewhere to back fill the hole made for the instalation of the gas the meter and pipe. The soil is very hard with a consistency of sand, which means it probaly came from a quarry bringing the seeds with it. This would explain the explosion of weeds in this part of the garden.
This explosion of weeds has had its benefits for me as there are some species of flowers which I havn't seen before – Bristly Oxtongue, Heath Groundsel, and Narrow Leaved Ragwort. Narrow Leaved Ragwort is a garden escape which is being increasingly found growing wild. Other flowers include Bittersweet, Weld, Hedge Mustard, Scented Mayweed, Common Poppy, Scarlet Pimpernel, Spear Thistle and Creeping Thistle.
Bittersweet is a perennial vine which scrambles over other plants and is often found in hedgerows and on waste ground. It is a member of the Nightshade family. Its berries are like very small tomatoes and are poisonus to humans and cattle. I have removed the plant which had already produced ripened berries for this reason. I intend to remove the Narrow Leaved Ragwort as it is not a native plant. I intend to remove some of the other species which are invasive or not particularly attractive, but keep the attractive plants like Scented Mayweed.
Andrew Watchorn