Ladies' fingers

NO matter where we live, summer brings a freedom from care that is unlike any other time of the year. The season is full of playfulness, wild flowers, light and relaxation.

There are dog daisies, red valerian, hawk-bit, Queen Ann lace, and red poppies now growing along the highways where wild garlic and rape seed had been only weeks ago. They brighten our environment irrespective of the prevailing weather.

The daisies are composites, flowers with an amalgamation or blend of smaller flowers which make a larger image, but the poppies show themselves like fancy tissue-paper doilies at a wedding; shy, bashful and retiring. Valerian bunches like lilac and is undisturbed by wind or rain or the suction of passing traffic. Further back from the verges, in among the wild ash, whitethorn, and still fresh beech boughs grow semi-woodland plants such as ferns, primula, elder, and fuchsia.