Bog Myrtle & Peat

Reading on through Derek Ratcliffe’s book on Galloway and the Borders, it’s strange to discover lists of wildflowers which used to be abundant in southwest Scotland. Their names are creepily unpleasant because while many used to be common, I’ve never heard of most of them. This is partly because botany is not my forte, but mainly because we’ve seen an astonishing slump in plant diversity here over the last forty years. This has underpinned the collapse of all kinds of other species, and it’s hard to deny the relevance of half-forgotten plants.

I picked two of Ratcliffe’s “common” flowers and sent away to a seeds company for a few samples. I’ve ended up with common rock rose and dyer’s greenweed; both were extremely common species here until quite recently. I can’t remember ever having seen either in the wild (perhaps that’s just my ignorance), and now I’d like to play with these plants and learn a bit more about them. The two little sachets of seeds are hardly going to change the world, but they may pave the way for more substantial work in future years. I’ve sown them in what I hope will be suitable spots along the farm track, and I’d like to report back on their progress in due course…