Wild Flowers intentional or not…

The last few years have seen increasing numbers of natural wild flower explosions as well as purposeful plantations of native species appearing all over the countryside. Both can be seen on roundabouts, along the sides or roads and in fields. I have favourites everywhere, from a particular run of motorway whose steep siding has become alive with orchids since the county council stopped intervening so often. Elsewhere, a dual carriageway siding busy with cowslips has become more populated each year as the clumps set seed on the slope and the wind tunnel sweeps it along. One field of poppies planted in Ballon, County Carlow, spent the summer stopping traffic.

I had a favourite roundabout outside Clonmel which morphed from one flowery display to another from May to November. Most recently, it was shorn to the ground and was beginning to green up again.  It will no doubt be a different affair altogether this year. Wild flower meadows are nothing if not ever changing and surprising.

Read the rest of this story in the June issue of The Irish Garden available in your local newsagent or via subscription!