Honeysuckle Meadows

I love Honeysuckle but there isn’t any around here. It is something that has been bothering me since I came here. There really should be Honeysuckle but I couldn’t find any in the forest or in the hedgerows.

Two days ago I happened to meet a lady that I know returning from a walk and she was enthusing about how lovely it was, “With the Foxgloves and Honeysuckle flowering in the hedgerows,” Shamefully I just thought she must be getting her flowers  mixed up and didn’t say anything to contradict her and I didn’t ask her where the Honeysuckle was because obviously she was just confused.

“There’s no Honeysuckle round here, Dear.”

Come on Fizz, time for your walk.

You don’t need to bring that, I have got you tennis balls.

I decided that if we were going to go out in the fields and play ball then it would be a good idea to walk around the perimeter of the farm and look for Badger activity (But that will be another post)

Fizz didn’t know what I was doing she thought that we had gone out to play.

We played with the yellow ball…

….After we had done that for a bit we played with the pink ball. (I was finding a lot of “snuffle holes”)Then we came to a hedge on the west side of the top field that had a character completely different from all of the other hedges around about.

Roses were growing in abundance (That’s another post too), Foxgloves, Woundwort, Red Campion  and guess what else we found growing there….

My Woodbine, Lonerica periclymenum. This grew freely in my wood in East Sussex and also in the woodlands around Brighton where I stayed for a while. It is a plant that I always associate with woodland.

Strangely though the hedgerows around here are thick with woodland plants and especially those that are considered “Ancient woodland indicators” like Lesser Celandine, Wood Anemones and Bluebells.

I could spend a lot of time writing about the life cycle and the qualities  of Honeysuckle, it is definitely one of my favourites but today I just want to post some pictures that I took yesterday and I will do the life story another day.

So that’s about it really, I took the dog for a walk and bumped into a whole bunch of beautiful flowers.

Badger sett surveyed…

Dog whacked out, that’s job done.

Walking back to the farm I was surprised to see that we have become a camp site. “Honeysuckle Meadows”

It is more of a field really.

And you have to share it.

Still not bad for a fiver a night.