A project for the coming year

[Sum1Ls]

During lockdown it was a joy to walk on our local Common, through which runs the Green Chain Walk. The wild flowers and blossom were astonishing - partly due to the wonderful spring and hot summer. The Friends of the Common have a FB page and a website and one member suggested that it would be good to record the wild flowers each month so there is a record.

She and I met on 1st September and recorded, ie photographed, dozens of flowers, far more than we’d expected. Now we have to identify them. Neither of us have any expertise so it will be a big learning curve and I’m hoping that the FB group called The Wildflower Group will be able to help out. We shall make a file each month and upload it to the Friends group page and it should be an interesting resource.

Is there anyone on here with good knowledge? I know there are keen gardeners but wildflowers are different.

[Clover]

Sounds a worthwhile project Sum1Ls While on a walk a few weeks ago I counted over ten different wild flowers. When you start to count it’s amazing how many there are.It was my Dad ,who sadly died when I was eleven, who taught me a lot about wild flowers, trees etc.

[Lizzie48]

There are very good plant apps available. Easy to use, just take a photo and the name of the plant appears.

[Gemini]

Lizzie, my DD1 has that app.

Great idea for a project Sum1.

[Daisy]

Sun - I've loved all your beautiful photos you've taken on your walks, and I think the project is a brilliant and useful idea.

Lizzie's suggestion is a very good one and will help a lot. Will you also record the habitat of each plant as well - type of soil, where it's growing etc? It could form a very useful record for future generations.

[Sunshine]

What a lovely project. Enjoy!

[Plantaholic]

What a lovely idea Sum, I agree with Daisy that it would be a good idea to record the habitat

[Fairyqueen]

sum, I have an app called ‘picture this’ it identifies plants. I pay £20 for a year. I had quite a few plants in my garden that I didn’t have a clue what they were. It was a great help.

[Fairyqueen]

Oops sorry, just seen another post saying the same as me. Ignore me!

[Nanto2girls]

I have an app called plantnet. Same thing,take a photo and it identifies the plant for you.
Sum1, it sound like an interesting project.

[Daisy]

Sum1 - in the process of doing the Forum Spring Clean I reread this thread.

The 12 months is just about up, and over the year I have seen a lot of really wonderful photos you've taken of your 'finds', including one which was thought to be extinct where you found it.

Have you enjoyed compiling this record? Are you going to carry on walking, recording and identifying wld flowers? And most importantly, are you going to make it all into a permanent record in the form of a book?

[Sum1Ls]

Sum1 - in the process of doing the Forum Spring Clean I reread this thread.

The 12 months is just about up, and over the year I have seen a lot of really wonderful photos you've taken of your 'finds', including one which was thought to be extinct where you found it.

Have you enjoyed compiling this record? Are you going to carry on walking, recording and identifying wld flowers? And most importantly, are you going to make it all into a permanent record in the form of a book?

Well, yes, it’s been a year and my knowledge has improved greatly. I’ve learned a great deal, one of which is never to rely or believe Apps. Sometimes they are correct but most are American and the algorithm often misidentifies British wild flowers or sternly warns ‘noxious weed’ of some poor harmless little flower. My son and DiL gave me two splendid books for Christmas and although at first it was hard going I’ve become a great deal faster now that I’m roughly aware of using keys and some of the plant families.

What I do is to record all my finds on the Friends page together with photos and the scientific names. It seems to be appreciated. I also ran two wildflower walks for children in the summer (not learned enough to do it for adults) and they were very successful.

My IT skills are not sufficient for me to even collate all the posts into a file but I’m hoping there might be a clever IT person who could do it.

As for a book! Ha ha. I’d need not only to do a heap more research but publishing is impossible. I have a friend who is a very distinguished local historical and the only way her books are published is by Amazon as they will transform the text. She doesn’t make any money from it and even one black and white photo add hugely to the cost.

So on FB it stays. And as you know even at home printing with colour consumes ink like a dinosaur on overdrive. So that’s not possible either. It’s also the case that lots of people blog about the local environment and walks so it’s an overcrowded field.

Anyway Daisy thank you for your kind words. When my find I’d published in Kent Botany, I’ll post it here!

[Sum1Ls]

If anyone is interested my posts are on The Friends of Woolwich Common FB page

[Lizzie48]

Sum, that sounds very interesting. I am going to have a look at the FB page.

[Daisy]

Sum1 - a massive 'well done' for all you have achieved this year. As I said the photos you have posted on FB have been beautiful and shown areas of Greenwich and SE London I would never have dreamed existed. Also you must have walked hundreds of miles during the course of the year, and learned such a lot about the people and places as well as the wild flowers.

I shall look forward to seeing Kent Botany in the not too distant future.