Tag: flowers

Clouded Yellow {new butterfly experience}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hey friends! 

I’ve got four new photographs to share with you this week, I’m literally having the best butterfly year of my life! It helps that the weather has been amazing and my wildlife garden is more or less finished (it will never be totally finished of course!) But creating a nectar rich garden and letting the space re-wild as much as possible has brought so many new types of butterfly to my garden this year.

Including this little lovely thing, she’s a female (I think) Clouded Yellow butterfly (Colias croceus) who is one of our regular and specular migrant species! They are seen in the UK most years but when the weather is like it has been then these guys are known for mass migrations and create something called a ‘clouded yellow year’, which is cool.

Continue reading “Clouded Yellow {new butterfly experience}” →

Exploring Penlee Battery {Landscapes and butterflies}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! How are ya? 

Once again I’m a little late posting, but the week got away from me slightly!

With all of the amazing weather we’ve been having I took a little time to explore Penlee Battery which is a nature reserve down near Rame head. I had so much fun during my adventures that day and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the wonders of Penlee battery and all of the wonderful nature too! I hope these photos bring as much brightness to your day as much as they did mine.

It was beautiful I literally can’t wait to go back!

It’s a wonderful place to walk and enjoy some time with nature, I’ve become fascinated with how meadows work and the different grasses all work together to create a whole ecosystem and support so much life.

There were plenty of Large white butterflies (one of my favourites) happily fluttering around the brambles, I even spotted a few Ringlet butterflies in the distance as well, although the photos weren’t particularly good through the grass.

Continue reading “Exploring Penlee Battery {Landscapes and butterflies}” →

Wandering through a meadow!

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! How are ya? 

Did you know that the first Saturday in July is National Meadows day!? 

Me neither!!

When I discovered Meadows Day was a thing and that it was this weekend I changed my mind on what I wanted to post and feverishly spent some time typing and getting some photos together, only to realise how late it had gotten, so I decided to post it today instead.

Still, better late than never…

According to the dictionary a meadow is ‘a field with grass and often has wild flowers in it.’ I love visiting meadows, wandering through the long grass searching for butterflies, listening to the birds singing and hoping not to attract any ticks.

So I thought I’d share some meadow related snaps from some of my recent adventures!

Meadows have been part of the English landscape for over a thousand years. A meadow is traditionally an area of grassland which is left to grow long through the spring and summer months and then cut for hay and turned into animal feed for during the winter.

One of my favourite things to do when adventuring is to spend some time just sitting amongst the long grass, listening to the buzzing…if you look closely there is actually a bee on the Knapweed in the centre of the shot – I didn’t realise until I looked back at the days photos.

Continue reading “Wandering through a meadow!” →

Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography8 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Guess what?! I did it again…I really need to learn that when scheduling posts I need to actually set them schedule not draft (rookie mistake!!).

This weeks post comes courtesy of all the lovely weather we’ve been having as I recently spent some time exploring Penhale Dunes.

It was beautiful.

Penhale dunes is an amazing set of really tall (90 metres in places) Atlantic facing sand dunes, the area is classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and spans a whopping 620 hectares.

Continue reading “Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}” →

Floral folklore #2

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hello my friends! 

How are you?!

I skipped last week because its been so sunny here its really quite distracting and I love it, the plants have tripled in size and I’ve already had ten different types of butterfly in the garden!

This week I thought I’d post another floral folklore, I’m always surprised by how folklore changes the way we interact with the plants around us so I’ve chosen three plants currently flowering in the wildspace all with purple-ish hues!

These lovely little Cuckoo flowers (Cardamine pratensis) pop up all over the garden in spring and they are so delicate, in English speaking countries they actually have a few other names – Lady’s smock/Mayflower or Milkmaids and are actually a member of the same plant family as cabbages!

Continue reading “Floral folklore #2” →

Floral folklore

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography3 Comments

Hello my friends! 

I don’t know about you but I love discovering the quirky myths and folklore about the plants I’m growing in my garden (I’m a total plant-nerd) I’m fascinated by plant-lore and how they effect the way we interact with different plants. Surprisingly we’ve had a few days of dry and sunny weather and since the very first signs of spring are starting to appear outside I thought I’d write down the folklore relating to three plants currently flowering in my wildspace. (Its a complete coincidence that they’re all the same colour!!)

I grew these lovely white violets in a pot inside and they didn’t do anything for like a year and a half so I hastily shoved them in the ground last November and lo and behold they’ve flowered!

Violets are such a pretty little flower that is often overlooked, apparently wearing a wreath of them was thought to prevent dizziness and finding only a single flower was said to be a bad omen, while violets flowering in the autumn was the sign an epidemic was on the way.

Theres a wonderful greek myth about violets, which is associated with the story of Io, a nymph who was having an affair with the god Zeus in an attempt to hide her from his wife he turned Io into a cow (so kind of him). It was said that Io was unhappy at the taste of grass to the extent it made her cry and Zeus supposedly created violets from her tears so that she’d have something sweet to eat. 

In the language of flowers white violets symbolise innocence and purity.

Continue reading “Floral folklore” →

An Early Autumn Flowershoot

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hey friends!

We’ve been blessed with a few extra days of summer and I’ve been holding onto them as much as possible.

I was sitting outside a couple of days ago, listening to the bees buzzing when I suddenly noticed how many of my plants are purple! So I thought why not enjoy the last few rays of perfect sunshine and decided to go on a garden flower safari and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants and a few bugs too! 

Starting off my flowershoot are these tiny purple daisies, I think they’re called Michaelmas daisies (a type of aster) and are a tough perennial that I don’t remember actually planting, but they’re so pretty poking out from underneath/behind other flowers that I’m not going to disturb them.

Continue reading “An Early Autumn Flowershoot” →

Traversing the Sandy Grassland {Exploring Cubert Common}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! How are ya? 

This week I had the opportunity to go exploring on the gently undulating sandy grasslands of a wonderful little National Trust site called Cubert Common – which happens to be one of the few enclosed Commons we have in the country. I had so much fun during that sunny (albeit windy) day and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants too! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your day as much as they did mine.

Cubert Common is a rather tranquil trail though open grassland – its also a Site of Special Scientific Interest as its home to some rare plants and bugs! It’s a beautiful place to walk and is filled with some lovely wildflowers like primrose and cowslips, with yellow flag iris growing in the damp marsh-y bits.

Gotta say for my first trip the beauty of the place was kinda magical.

Continue reading “Traversing the Sandy Grassland {Exploring Cubert Common}” →

A day among the flowers

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hey friends!

We’re beginning to get increasingly closer to all the beautiful flowers being in bloom and I thought I’d share some recent clicks of pretty flowers I’ve taken. Some from my garden and some from the wild and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants too! 

It wasn’t until I sat to look over my photos that I realised I’d been focusing on pink flowers! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your day as much as they did mine.

Its funny I hadn’t realised just how many plants are pink!

Starting off my wildflower quest is a little light pink Scabious, I love these and am actually growing about a dozen of these plants in my Wildspace, as long as you cut the faded heads off they flower all summer long and the butterflies love them.

Continue reading “A day among the flowers” →