The Perfect Pink

The common colours of a Warwickshire spring are white and yellow.  In our gardens, we may strive to bring in other colours: deep blues of Anemone blanda, purples of crocuses, smoky pinks of Ribes and Pulsatilla.  This morning, the first scarlet flower of a Helianthemum opened in my garden.  Out in the hedgerows and meadows, however, there aren’t many flowers that aren’t white and yellow: the blackthorn is still brilliant in uncut hedges.  As the daffodils go over, yellow cowslips are coming into flower, the first dandelions and buttercups.

At Sun Rising, evidence is creeping in that spring is beginning to settle into the idea of summer ahead.  The deep violet bells of snakeshead fritillaries are at their prime.  The very first bluebells are starting to reveal tentative flowers.  What takes my breath away though, and without any doubt, is the crab apple blossom.

Crab Apple Blossom in Norma's Wood

Crab Apple Blossom in Norma’s Wood

To me it is the perfect pink.  There’s no hint of artificial pink, no plastic or Disney.  This is nature’s pink, an English pink: the softest touch of pink.  In contrast, its quiet glows against the grey-brown bark of the tree, still leafless.  Some crab apples are almost thorny, giving yet another balance to its beautiful, tender elegance.

For those who can’t visit Sun Rising at the moment, here’s a photograph of just one of the crab apples in flower.  You can see the roundhouse behind it.  Breathe in the peace of it, and all the fruitfulness of summer about which each little flower is whispering.

The Serenity of Cherry Blossom

The longing for snowdrops as the first sign of spring is hard-wired in my soul.  Whatever the winter, the little white bells have a purity and tenderness that glows with nature’s resilience.  After such a challenging winter – so relentlessly wet and grey – this year my heart sang when their flowers began to peak through the muddy grass.

This year, however, as we stumble into and through this pandemic, the need for some quality of resilience persists.  Whatever our circumstances, moments of purity and tenderness are truly precious right now.  Where nature’s beauty offers the reassurance of life renewing itself in the certainty of spring’s return, it is profoundly appreciated.  At Sun Rising, with the golden daffodils shimmering in the sunshine, yesterday the first of the wild cherries came into blossom.

Wild Cherry Blossom at Sun Rising

Memorial Wild Cherry in Blossom at Sun Rising

The tree photographed here is a memorial tree, planted on a grave in memory of an individual laid to rest here, a person no doubt much loved and missed.  The tree is just a sapling, five or six years old, barely six foot tall, with the elegant slenderness of a tree not yet filled out into branches.  Nonetheless, the blossom seemed to me to speak with such a gentle strength: the quiet voice of a wise grandmother, someone who’s lived a long life through many crises, and come through again and again into springtime, into peace, with the love of family and friends.

Perhaps it is daft of me to feel our loved ones in the trees planted in their memory, but I can’t help doing so!  These brilliantly white flowers, the pollen-laden anthers inviting in the first of the bees, the reddish tinge to the unfurling leaves, are worth sharing.  As cherry trees flower around the northern hemisphere, in the cemeteries of Japan, the parks of Canada, the gardens of Germany, everywhere, their strength and serenity is celebrated.  Feel free to share the beauty with others, especially those who this year can’t get out to see it.

Bright and Beautiful

At this time of uncertainty, when the human world is fearful and closing in, the daffodils are at their most beautiful. Bright with sunshine and such serenity, they dance in the breeze, welcoming the first of the big bumblebees.

Wild Daffodils around a Mulched Sapling

Wild Daffodils around a Mulched Sapling

With their soft creamy petals and bright lemon yellow trumpets, these are the native English species, not garden cultivars.  We buy them in as bulbs each October for families to plant.   You’ll see in this photo how they show up beside the rich composted bark that surrounds the memorial tree behind.

Last weekend we mulched three quarters of the young trees onsite, helped by a marvellous team of volunteers.  You can find photographs on our Instagram feed.  With the stronger folk shovelling the composted bark into bulk bags, then shifting the bags around the site, others were filling trugs from the bulk bags and encircling each little sapling.  Not only the memorial trees, but many of the structural planting was mulched as well, helping to suppress competing vegetation (mostly grass) and keeping precious moisture in the soil.  Of course, at times it was a matter of tiptoeing amongst the daffodils …

Many thanks to all the wonderful volunteers.  Thanks too to the daffodils and all those who have planted them each autumn over the past ten years or more.  Their sunlight lifts our hearts every spring, and this spring we really need their beauty, perhaps more than ever.

Weather Frowns

This last six months have been the wettest we’ve experienced since Sun Rising opened in 2006.  There have been puddles of water in the meadows for weeks, paths have grown muddy in places, and some areas are still pretty squelchy underfoot, but as I frown with anxiety I am also aware that climate change has brought crises to others on a totally different scale.

The snowdrops are now going over and spring is beckoning.  Our little native daffodils, the Narcissus pseudonarcissus, are coming into their peak, blooming with a beautiful lemon yellow in the meadow and woodland.  When the snow arrived the other day, they too seemed to frown, but today they are once again sweetly vibrant.

Wild Daffodils in the Snow

Wild Daffodils in the Snow

Who knows what the weather will be this year.  Yesterday I sat in the cabin, a rich bright blue sky above, when hailstones began to fall.  With another weather-inspired frown, I poked my head out to see a small but intensely dark cloud passing overhead.  To be fair, such erratic events are not unusual for an English spring!  The skylarks are beginning to fill the skies with melody, the dunnocks are up on the hedge tops singing their hearts out too, and the robins are scrapping: spring is coming.

Perhaps all we can hope for this year is that the dark clouds, both literal and metaphorical, pass over us quickly, and clear blue skies help to dry our drenched landscape just a little.

Our Tree Sparrow Project

The beautiful little tree sparrow used to numerous in Britain. It is now on our Red List, its population having seen a drastic reduction in the last forty years.

At Sun Rising, however, there is a small but (we believe) viable population. And when it comes to the environment, each small action makes a difference. We have now teamed up with the Banbury Ornithological Society and the RSPB in an attempt to bolster this population, perhaps to the point where it will begin to spread.

Adding to the 6 tree sparrow boxes that were already being used onsite, we have now added another twelve. We’ve also installed two large ‘farmland birds’ feeders, with seed specifically for the tree sparrows. Here’s a photo of the team, with a new nest box and seed feeder.

Tree Sparrow Team, Nest Box and Feeder

Tree Sparrow Team, Nest Box and Feeder

It’ll take a while for the tree sparrows to start using the feeders: they are particularly wary of change and slow to trust. But once they get used to them, we hope our little extra help will make a significant difference. We’ll let you know.

Check our Projects page for more information.

The Turning of the Year

Every winter has its challenges.  This year, the grey skies and rain have felt utterly relentless.  The earth is saturated and rain is puddling easily.  The winds of the last few days have been exhausting.

Yet there are moments of beauty all around us, nature glowing in splashes of golden winter sunshine.  This photograph of hazel catkins, dancing in the breeze, the rich blue sky behind, reminds to us how limited is our human perspective.  The cycle of the year is turning.  Indeed, yesterday I found the first snowdrops in flower at Sun Rising …

Hazel Catkins in the Breeze

Hazel Catkins in the Breeze

There are a few pockets of snowdrops planted ‘in the green’, already in flower, but the ones I found were the first of the year to flower from bulbs planted.  As snowdrops don’t like wet soil, I suspect this year there may not be as many as we would hope – which made it all more delightful to see these little ones, still low in the grass, hiding from the cold.

This week we cut the main car park hedge at Sun Rising.  Although this removes most of its chance to flower, it’s essential to keep its shape and density.  In the thick tangle of branches and twigs at its heart, tree sparrows, blue tits, dunnocks, great tits, greenfinches, wrens, chaffinches and yellowhammers are sheltering from the cold wind, fluffed up and chattering.

If you manage to visit, wrap up and wear boots that can cope with muddy soil.  Make sure you’re warm enough to be able to pause.  You may find one of our resident robins flies close.  In this cold weather, with food scarce, they don’t mind the company of other robins around the hedgerows, trees and feeders, and they will often stop to sing.  This is their secondary song – an expression of companionship, of sharing the news – and it’s quite unlike the springtime territorial concerto.  A gentle and richly tuneful warble, it fills the cold air with hope and calm.

A Year of Mushrooms

This year, with such a damp autumn, there have been some wonderful fungi at Sun Rising.  Half hidden under fallen leaves, or in areas of longer wet grass, sometimes tucked up against the post of a tree plaque, there are so many different varieties.  My ability to identify them barely begins, but perhaps that allows my wonder and delight to be undimmed by knowledge, to be childlike and free.  There are tall shaggy white ones and big fat plate-shaped ones.  There are deep russet-brown ones, dark chocolate-brown ones, pinky ones, and every hue from cream to yellow.

Yesterday, as we began our tree planting, with 42 new trees put in along the track beyond the cairn, we came across a wonderful display.  Under the tarp covering our heap of composted bark we found mushrooms to make anyone pause.

Mushrooms on Composted Bark

Mushrooms on Composted Bark

Of course, we need to be using the composted bark: over the coming three weeks of tree planting, with each tree needing its doughnut of mulch, we’ll make a pretty big dent in the heap.  But the mushrooms we see are only the ‘fruits’ of the fungi organism.  The body of the fungi is underground, as a network of mycelium – in this case, it is spreading through the composted bark.  The mushrooms will have shed their spores or ‘seeds’ into the bark.  As we break it up, putting the bark around each little sapling, we’ll be spreading the fungi around the new woodland areas.

Having written that, my mind is now full of questions!  There’s so much to learn.  I’m off to dig out a book on fungi …

In Search of Red and Gold

What inspires me to write a post for this blog is most often the simple beauty I come across at Sun Rising each and every day.  The changes, brought by the turning of the seasons, the shift from dry to wet, from warm to cold, the effects of wind, the presence of the wildlife, all fill my mind as I walk around the site.  When some image is captured in a photograph, it feels only fair to share it.  I am aware too that many who read these words are not able to get to the natural burial ground often, and value the chance to see some of what I do each day.

Sometimes those beautiful moments are harder to find.  Sometimes the days are long, the world seems to have gone mad, nature itself seems too harsh, and it takes an effort to find peace: my coat drenched with chilly rain, my boots heavy with mud, I shake myself, striving to dislodge the filters of tiredness, reaching to see clearly the beauty of nature around me.

Guelder Rose and Field Maple in Autumn Colours

Guelder Rose and Field Maple in Autumn Colours

The young woodland at Sun Rising is now coming into its richest autumn colours.  This year, they aren’t brilliant.  We’ve not had the deep frosts needed to destroy the chlorophyll and turn the leaves yellow and gold.  Dry, bright, crisp-cold days are what bring out the reds, russets and purples; instead, the wet weather has meant many trees are losing leaves without much of an autumn display.  Some of our younger trees are also still recovering from almost 18 dry months , from the start of summer 2018 through to this damp October, and as a result they have shed their leaves early.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of wonder.  The blending colours in this photograph, from the field maple’s pale greens, yellows and gold, into the gorgeous reds of the guelder rose, caught my eye yesterday.  Between trees with leaves still a dark matt-green, the ivory bark of the silver birch with tender leaves now yellowing, there is the guelder rose with its shamelessly rich burgundy.  Its scarlet viburnum berries, the rose hips and deep red apples, all offer moments to pause and gaze, to breathe and remember: even in the madness of this world, there is beauty.

New Interpretation Board

In the process of creating a nature reserve and natural burial ground, over a number of acres and a number of years, it is inevitable that ideas will change. The first design map, imagining what the site would look like, was drawn up in 2005: it was a beautiful possible landscape, with curves and loops, copses and parkland trees.  Yet, immediately we started to work on the land, the land began to teach us.  It didn’t take long before we were simplifying our ideas, learning every step of the way.

Since the first version was put in place by the main car park, in 2006, the interpretation board has been updated and replaced once, in 2012.  However, over the past year or so, when showing visitors around the site, I’ve had to explain how its map was in fact sadly out of date. I was – I promised them – in the process of designing the new one. It is a relief to be able to announce that it is now in place.

New Interpretation Board at Sun Rising, 2019

New Interpretation Board at Sun Rising, 2019

The design, slightly altered, is just as simple, but the map shows more detail.  You can now see just where the areas of wildflower meadow are, and will be, as you can with the woodland, hedgerows and copses. You can also see where we will be leaving a wide grassy ride.  The cairn, Tyr’s stone, the butterfly stones and other features are identified.  Some of the established paths are on there, although others will be added.

You’ll notice that the north-eastern corner is not complete.  In years to come, what is now the top car park will become the main entrance, and we are still in the process of designing exactly how that will be.  When our ideas are clearer, we’ll be showing you the plans and asking for your feedback.  And when those plans start coming into being, of course, it’ll be time for a new interpretation board!

Until then, I look at the photograph above.  The wildflower meadow is mown, but for small pockets for little creatures to hide in.  The trees are a dark dull green, some leaves starting to turn and fall.  The sky is pale.  It’s a dreary autumn day in the heart of England, damp and chilly.  But even on such a day, the map shows hope and promise: of wildflower meadows in full bloom, butterflies, bees, and the skylark in full song.  It won’t be long – winter is before us, but summer will return …

Little Brown Applenut Berries

The wild service tree is one of the really special trees we plant here at Sun Rising. Another of its common names is the checkers or chequers tree. Sorbus torminalis, it’s in the same genus as the rowan and the whitebeams, but it is quite a different creature. Although native to England, and particularly the heavy clay of South Warwickshire, many people have never heard of this magnificent species.

Wild Service Tree Berries

Wild Service Tree Berries

Its blossom in spring is not extraordinary: handfuls of little white flowers, often high in the canopy. The trees don’t start flowering until they reach around seven years old, and it takes another year or so of maturing for the tree to set its blossom, growing the equally insignificant berries. To me they look like tiny little apples, in a rich nut-brown. If the summer is hot enough to ripen them fully, apparently they can taste rather like dates – I’ve not yet tried one, but the birds seem to like them late in the year.  When the tree really comes into its own is in the autumn when, more extravagantly than any of our native trees, its large palmate leaves can break into a thousand hues of gold, through bronze and maroon, to shameless scarlet.

More importantly, and fascinating as a history of this tree, before hops arrived from the continent, it was these little brown berries that were used to flavour our beer.  There’s a debate as to whether the common name of checkers tree was taken from the name of old pubs, or if pubs were named after the checkers trees that were so integral to the beer: I like the latter.  The patterning on the silvery bark can look wonderfully checkered as the tree matures.

Centuries ago, it was a common tree in this landscape, but as old woodlands were felled, it was one of the species that wasn’t readily replaced. It has a beautiful fine wood for timber, and can grow to 10m – 25m tall.  But the truth is that it just didn’t grow as easily as the Warwickshire weed that was the English elm, nor as readily as ash, maple or oak.  Across the continent, in warmer climes, the berries ripen sufficiently each summer to set their seed, but in England the wild service tends to spread through suckers. Once you’ve cleared the old wood, there’s no chance for those suckers to grow.  With hops taking over its role in brewing, there weren’t enough reasons to keep replanting.

Its importance in Warwickshire, however, is now becoming clearer.  With the large elms lost, and ash die-back killing these beautiful trees too, and with the oak under threat, some tree experts wonder if the wild service tree may be the next significant large tree of our countryside.  It does need a little help to get going from seed, and it can look a little straggly in its first decade, getting its roots established in the soil.  But we are hoping you agree, this tree is really worth the time and trouble: perhaps one day it will be bringing its glorious autumn colour to fields and hedgerows all over Warwickshire, and who knows, perhaps some small brewer will again try the little nut-brown berries to flavour a local beer …