A purple beauty you can bank on

ONE of my favourite summer wildflowers is purple loosestrife. It’s a plant that loves wet places, as I do myself, growing on the banks of rivers, lakes and canals.

It won’t grow in bogs because the soil is too acidic, but it will flourish in fens and marshy places where there is a reasonable amount of lime in the soil.

Its tall spikes of reddish purple flowers are at their finest in July and are looking spectacular right now. As a fisherman I have cursed them from time to time because they seem to have an uncanny knack for tangling an angler’s tackle, but as an amateur botanist I have nothing but admiration for such an elegant plant.