Passing glory

I've been dropping by this piece of neglected land for a couple of years just to marvel at the swathes of flowers that bloom in colourful abandon here.  Most are wild  but a few spring from garden waste dumped from a nearby holiday park. Left to its own devices the patch has become a botanical treasure trove for me and for the multitude of butterflies and bees that today were sampling a tasting menu of nectars. Alas, it's all about to end. Half the patch has been razed and I suspect it's all destined for a new cabins and lodges set among smooth lawns. A loss but not a tragedy: natural succession would see this area turn into scrub and thicket with the loss of most of the  opportunistic species.

Today I took a notebook  to record the flowers currently blooming here, in no particular order as they caught my eye. It's just a personal record of how a small patch of messy, overlooked land can be so botanically diverse and how it's always worth taking a second (or indeed a first) look at the bad lands.

Hemp agrimony, fleabane, foxglove, ragwort, loosestife (purple and yellow), dog daisy, sneezewort, creeping buttercup, bird's foot trefoil, pink clover, silverweed,  knapweed, yarrow, plantain, thistle (several varieties), evening primrose, nettle, convolvulus, white bedstraw, yellow toadflax,  tormentil, wild angelica, watermint, cat's ear, bramble, gorse, dock, selfheal, tufted vetch, lesser stitchwort, woundwort, willow herb (several kinds)  plus, naturalized: montbretia, verbena, buddleia, red valerian.