garden photography: red valerian

In May I’m looking for Wild flowers

(This month I want to see native wild flowers found in the hedgerows, woodlands, farmland, meadows, by the coast, up a mountain, on the heath and even in your own garden. Basically those plants that haven’t been planted, but occur naturally, although specifically planted wild flower meadows can be included. Wild flowers provide food for humans and wildlife and are usually hardy, resilient and well adapted to the climate and soils, and yes sadly often referred to as weeds.)

Red Valerian: (Centranthus rubra) is a woody-based perennial, sometimes grown as a biennial, with grey-green leaves and dense clusters of crimson, pink or white, slightly fragrant flowers from late spring to autumn.

Although sometimes grown as a garden plant it is usually found growing on walls, sea-cliffs, rocks and waste land and brownfield sites, especially near the coast. It can be difficult to eradicate as its roots are very long, and although very attractive it can cause substantial damage to walls.

If you would like to join in with Garden Photography then please take a look at my Garden Photography Page. No complicated rules 🙂

• Create your own post and title it May: Wild Flowers
• Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
• Add the tag “GardenChallenge” so everyone can find the posts easily in the WP Reader
• Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new theme comes out on the first Sunday in June.
• Please visit the sites in the comments to see what others are posting and thank you all once again for such a pleasurable month of photos from around the world.

This is the last week for wild flowers so please post your contributions soon. I actually think I could have carried this particular theme on for the rest of the year, but next Sunday we move on to June and The Essence of Summer – what does summer mean to you? Keep it within a garden / park environment, but this is your opportunity to share your favourite summer photos. This might be gardens, butterflies, bees, particular flowers, picnics or barbecues, or even children running around in the garden sprinkler or dipping their toes in a favourite fountain. No restriction on the type or style of photo.