Woodland and wayside flowers
A gallery of images from the woods around the village. These are predominantly beech and conifer plantations on ancient woodland soils, but there are also patches of ancient woodland and wood pasture and a ghost woods. All the local woods are home to bluebells, but they all have distinct characters. The woods on Bulbarow are also home to wild garlic and stitchwort, to the north and south the woods are a mix of bluebells and wood anemones and wod sorrel, and to east of the village the woods are almost entirely bluebells in April and May.
On the Chalk Downs
A gallery of images from the chalk grasslands and the Dorset downs. Many of these images were taken on ancient monuments, upon which remnants of ancient unploughed and unimproved chalk grassland are home to many wild flowers, both common and rare. Within a short distance of my home are Hambledon and Hod Hill, Fontmell Down, Martin Down NR and Badbury Rings, all wonderful locations for both plants and pollinators.
Flowers of the fields
A gallery of images taken in the local fields. Crops, arable wild flowers and pollinator species from conservation headlands. For the last few years opium poppies and flax have been grown in the fields around the village and most years a riot of red poppies will skirt the edges of the arable crops . Walking the edges of arable fields in the hope of finding some of our rarer wild flowers and enjoying the company of the myriad pollinators is a favourite pastime of mine in the summer months.
Heathland flora
The Dorset heaths are home to some of our rarest plants, carnivorous sundews, bog asphodels, Dorset heather and marsh gentians. A habitat I don’t visit as much as the woods and fields which are within walking distance of my home. I hope to add many more plants to this gallery in the coming year.
Jo Stephen Photography 