The Cruel Sea

 Rocky Cliffs

Along the North Devon & Cornwall coast, leading up to Hartland Point; is this amazing stretch of coast, with barely any human settlements and rock strata, which as the picture below clearly shows; go all ways, including vertically.  These rocks range from Quartzite, metamorphosed Slate, Red Sandstone and the odd igneous protrusion of granite.  they are around 450'000'000(four hundred and fifty hundred million) years old and were laid down originally as sediment in the Devonian era.  Around the same sort of time as life began to crawl out of the sea, and was beginning to find root in and around estuaries and rivers.

 Because these rocks are so old; they have been compacted, crushed together by continental drift, partially melted and metamorphosed; they are tough and stand up to fierce pounding from the relentless crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, which this coastline faces head-on.  

Cliff Plants

Unlike the flimsy Clays and Chalks, which make up most of the coasts of Southern Briton; these tough rocky high cliffs give much anchorage and therefore habitat to many surprisingly tough little plants:


Sea Pinks Armeria Maritima

Seen here, with tufts of low, tightly packed, dark green, blade-like foliage and clusters of pink flowers, held on extended little stems.

Left to their own devices and needing seemingly no help from me; these tough little plants occupy much of Briton's rocky cliff sides and tops, even growing on some heathland, near to the coast.

As a garden plant; the Thrift, as it is sometimes known, has been a great success mainly as a rockery plant, where it thrives, despite being a long way from the coast and it flowers almost continuously from June to October, here shown in mid September, clearly their best is over, but still throwing up new flowering stems, regardless of what nature and the brooding Atlantic may through at them. 

Indeed; this strikes me as a highly adaptable species.  I have some in my garden on Dartmoor, where they thrive and help to keep the weeds down on the rockeries, by growing in such tight clumps, so as not to allow the young germinating weed seed any light or nutrients.  

Sea Pinks will flourish where little else will grow and will take root in any little rocky crack.

I do not have any plans to introduce Sea pinks to Dartmoor,  I think they should remain a sea plant, in less nature causes them to make such a migration themselves.  
No, today's expedition is merely to observe.

Samphire Crithmum Maritimum

 The Common Rock Samphire, which by all accounts is not only edible, but considered quite a delicacy; is common on seaside cliffs and walls, such as these around the coastline.
The flowers would have been white and umbeliferious in nature.
The whole plant has a fleshy, succulent feel to it and it is very common.

Scurvy Grass Cochleria Officinalis/Pyrenaica/Danica/Anglica

Between these clumps of Sea Pinks can be seen; the little rosettes of fleshy leaves, shaped a bit like those of  a violet.

Curiously named Scurvy Grass.  I mean, the Scurvy bit's OK, because they are rich in Vitamin C and therefore would cure scurvy, but 'Grass'; It is neither a type of grass, nor dose it bear any kind of resemblance to a grass, so I guess that bit will remain a mystery for now.

Some species of Scurvy Grass grow in muddy estuaries and salt flats, others can grow way inland, often in road or railway cuttings.

I have added a few specimens of such a variety of this species, which I found many of, whilst cycling home, from Okehampton, on the road edges & in banks, going around & over the edges of Dartmoor, between Okehampton and Tavistock.  I will see how they do, before deciding weather or not to introduce any varieties extensively to the High Moor.

Break down

I had always wondered what happened if you broke down in the fast lane and today, I found out.  I have been having trouble with my motorbike, since I put the wrong kind of fuel in it a few months ago.  Today; it conked out in the fast lane of the A38, just after in turns into a 3 lane road at the bottom of the infamous Haldon hill, just before it turns into the M5.

Getting across two lanes of fast moving traffic, with a rapidly decreasing motorbike, which I had to side pedal, with my feet; was pretty difficult and scary, but I made it and pushed the bike about a quarter of a mile to a dusty lay by.

Here I found this lovely new plant.

I am a bit unclear about this plant.  I think it might be one of the 'Milk Vetch' family, but I would defiantly say, that I have not yet clearly identified this plant.  It kind of vaguely resembles a Lupin, but I am sure its a vetch of some kind.

After examining the Vetch and taking a few photos'; the bike started again, but then broke down again in Exeter.  I had to call the breakdown people.

Since I had broken down outside my friends house and told the breakdown people that they could take their time, if they had any more important calls; they took 5 minutes!  The last 2 times I have broken down in remote locations, once in the rain and they took 4 hours, both times.

Anyway they fixed the bike and I drove 5 miles down the road and broke down again.   This time is was drizzling and there was no phone reception, but two cars going opposite ways, both stopped and one guy called Graham, drove me two miles up a hill, so I could phone the breakdown people and then drove me back to where my bike was and waited with me 20 Min's, until they arrived. 

It is really heartwarming, when people do things like that. 

Broke down again in Postbridge.  This time there was no phone reception, no AA and no Graham to rescue me.  I pushed the bike into the tourist car park and began the long walk home.

 The moon was full and the rain was intermittent.  The walk was not too bad, but; what am I going to do if my bike doesn't work?

My Bike was toed away by Carl the next day.  What am I going to do?   

PLANTING SNEEZEWORT

Sneezewort  Achillea Ptarmica

I have not seen this plant growing in the wild very much.  In fact; until recently, I had only ever collected the one little road side chunk of it from near Holsworthy in North Devon.  The one little chunk quickly spread and seeded all over the garden and most prevalently; in the lawn.  Until recently, had had 2 Geese, who kept my grass cut short for me & they didn't care much for Sneezewort, so it flourished.

It is a member of the Yarrow family, Achillia.  It grows about 40cm high and starts flowering in July.

In the picture below, you can see that I am digging a patch of my lawn, thick with Sneezewort.  I had previously gone over it with the mower, to cut off all the flowering stems, I had then given it a few weeks to bush out a bit, so that it was nice and vigorous and ready to be transferred to it's new home.

It is necessary to do this within a few days of rain, so the ground is nice and soft and easy to squish into cracks in walls, and also plants hate being transplanted in dry soil.

I separate these turfs into 8cm square chunks of ground, packed with the tangled roots, so that each bit has it's own little bit of root ball and then the roots will hopefully get as little disturbance as possible. 

I suppose that the concept for today, is really; dig it up in chunks and stuff it into walls.

I took the Bicycle today, as I knew I would be having to stop allot.  I planted a bit in suitable walls, about every few hundred meters or so in the walls along the ungraized roads, which go across the tops of the moor.

Often these walls are filled or part filled with earth.  When I plant something in a wall like these ones; I like to ensure that there is some soil in there, which the root ball of what I've put in is touching.  Then it feels like I have connected it to the Earth.

 It was very satisfying to be able to cover so much ground and get so much done in one day.  If only Wild Daffodils and Trees were so easy.

I have so many Sneezeworts in the garden, I don't have to go out looking for them, they take very easily, spread quickly, will grow where little else will grow, like on the tops of stone walls and they are stunning, when they flower, which they do for at least 4 months.

One thing that dose concern me is that all these thousands of plants, just came from this one Holsworthy chunk.  There couldn't have been very many individual plants in that chunk, so they must be getting fairly inbred by now, I would have thought.  But they appear to be very healthy.  It is possible that someone might have some in a near by garden, or that there is already some here, that I don't yet know about.

This year I did find a little bit near Lydford, which will expand the gene pool a tiny bit, but Sneezewort defiantly likes it on Dartmoor.  It will be very nice to have a fairly unusual plant so common up here.

Festival/Free Party on the Welsh Border

 HAIR BELLS

If they'll grow here; they should grow on Dartmoor!

All work and no play.  I have been kindly driven to a small 3 day free party/ mini festival thing, by my friend, Jake; and all I want to do is climb around on fields and moorland, photographing plants.

 I am somewhere in Herefordsire, in the Black mountains and that ridge is the Welsh border, or at least, according to my calculations, that is so. We drove deep into Wales, to get here. According to some app on Jake's phone; the party's situated at over 500 metres above sea level.

 Thanks to Beat-Nyx for putting on the party. really, really good party!Very good vibe, really nice people.

But anyway; Here, the rock is slate, someone said the mountain is Red Sandstone,so it's looking potentially to have a pretty acid soil here, like on Dartmoor, indicated blatantly; by there being much Heather here, so why don't hair Bells grow on Dartmoor?

Unfortunately there were not enough to collect any and they were way off  from seeding. So on this trip, I mearly made observations and I hope that one day; I will have gathered enough data to be able to introduce these nice little grassland plants onto Dartmoor.

Planting a Swamp

Float-on Bog

Much of the woods I have planted is damp ground, but quite a lot is on dangerous float-on bog, which has similar properties to quick-sand, if you tread on the wrong place. But the vegetation informs me 'where to tread and where not to tread'. Some bits are just not worth the risk and would probably not be able to support any trees. Float-on bog is water covered in a tangled layer of vegetation. There's allot of it dammed behind the river's natural levees, all along the valley, but these dangerous bogs are by no means confined to river valleys, but that's where they mostly are.

Planting in these places is a bit scary as the whole surface structure sags and quivers as I carefully step into and accross it. However one benefit is that I only need use the spade to cut hole. No digging is required; I can then stuff the little tree or plant into the wet peat with my foot.

Alders and Willows are really the only of the big(ish) trees to be able to grow on the float on, although many others will grow around the edges. Guelder Rose, Blackthorn and Hazel seem to do remarkably well too.

It is important to note, that all trees, even swamp trees are going to be stunted in the middle of a swamp. Most, esp. The bog trees (Willow & Alder) love being on the edge of a swamp, with their roots in both wet and dry ground. These grow more quickly than any other trees in this location.

Experimentation

Will it Survive or won't it?

Before starting a large scale introduction of a new species; I like to try a few out first, in a few safe places and then observe the progress over however much time I feel is necessary, when or if larger scale introductions will be necessary.

Some plants are obviously very tough; Willows, for example, needed no trial. Same with wild Blue Bells. Both grew here already, but in only a few places and not in any great numbers. So with both plantings began in the wild on year1.

Wild Daffodils needed trials to determine A) If they could survive up here on the moors. B) If they were able to propagate themselves up here. C) With Wild Daffofils being and endangered species; before large scale introductions began; I also conducted experiments to determine the impact of my various collection methods upon controlled small areas in the wild. Wild Daffodils now are my most widespread plant. Mostly around Dartmoor, but I think in a few years time, people might not regard it rare anymore.

Trees and plants in the early years, were all planted in small groups and in a variety of different habitats, basically to see what they would tolerate and what they preferred.

Experiments in the wild are often simultaneous with trials in the garden. Since I dwell slightly higher than most of what I plant, the garden is generally where I start. If they'll grow in the garden; they should survive in the valley below.

Experimentation is a very good and clear way of learning. It saves waist and can avoid learning harsh lessons.

Allot of these initial experiments are quite big now, dotted about, as the first wave of the returning forest, and very importantly; appearing as natural as I can possibly make it.

Experiments in my Garden

The Soil and Climate Test;

Where I can easily observe them; In the Garden!

Before introducing a new plant species, that so far has been absent from the high moor, but abundant (at least in places) on the foot hills, be able to Survive up here, on the high moor?

Successful introductions into the wild zones of the garden and since gone on to Begin their first trial plantings, in the wild, would include; Valerian (valeriania), Wild Iris, Wild Strawberries, Wild Daffs, Teazel as well as many others.

Many of the species trialed in my garden are now are building up colonies in the wild up here, and are now being (or have been) planted on a much bigger scale by me.

The amount a new species needs to be planted in the wild is often determined by it's ability to spread in it's new environment.