Wild clematis, traveller's joy, is commonly seen in the limestone uplands west of Oswestry, wreathing trees and shrubs. This one has made it down to the town's industrial estate, twining and engulfing something now completely hidden. #ClimbingPlants #WildflowerHour

Evening primrose, a North American plant, doesn't count as an invasive. A prolific self-seeder, this one is growing from the crack between my garden wall and the pavement. Every day more than 100 new flowers open out, enticing moths and other insects. #WildflowerHour

A Pacific Swift in Wales - what a fantastic sighting. And in their excitement they forgot to post about it for a whole week!

#PollinatorPals for #WildflowerHour one of many red-tailed bumblebees feeding on bird's-foot trefoil, a hover fly on lovage in my garden, a scarlet tiger moth resting between hectic pollinating trips and a longhorn beetle on meadowsweet.

Such an amazing #wildflowerhour tonight! I hope you enjoyed the #ChurchFlowers challenge. It’s been a busy one, apologies if I’ve not reached your contribution, I’ll carry on reposting throughout the week! Happy flower hunting & keep a lookout for the next challenge! ☺️

Today I saw something spectacular. In an edge of town field full of thistles dozens and dozens of painted lady butterflies appeared. Many of them were settled on the thistles but as I got closer some took to the air, fluttering and circling. About 100 altogether. Never seen anything like it before.

Distracted by the swifts so I'm late for #WildflowerHour but these Germander Speedwell are every bit as gorgeous as the mighty delphiniums at Chelsea #WildflowerShow.

And some #Tinyflowers too for #Wildflowerhour an umbel of Pignut and a whorl of Crosswort.

Some jewels for #WildflowerHour and abundance of Bogbean in a nearby calcareous fen and the lovely Water Violet in a pool near the Severn/Vyrnwy confluence.

12 different plants growing from the pavement or in the wall outside my house, seeded from my garden: purple toadflax, feverfew, aquilegia, herb Robert, hart's tongue fern, wall rue, sowthistle, evening primrose, verbascum, plantain, lychnis coronaria, petty spurge.

Slightly paler, slightly smaller than the common swift and much more fickle. Lovely photo.

Bluebells come late to Oswestry racecourse - it's 1,000 feet up - so when the lowland ones are over, there's another chance to enjoy their beauty and the wafts of scent that billow from them.

Mighty oak tree in Shropshire #ThickTrunkTuesday

Common vetch, sanicle, red clover and sweet Cicely (with its delicious, aniseed seed pods) for #WildflowerHour #carrotsandpeas

Meadow buttercup bulbous buttercup, Goldilocks - shorn of her petals as usual - and a late wood anemone for the #ButtercupChallenge on #WildflowerHour.

Pond water crowfoot for the #ButtercupChallenge on #WildflowerHour. I didn't dare risk paddling in for a close-up as there are 6-inch leeches in this pond.

Swifts whizzing around the rooftops!

A forest of cowslips in the Oswestry hills.

Crabapple blossom is spilling out of hedges right now, cow parsley doing its 'lace in the lane my lovely' thing and bush vetch subtly dusky. #WildflowerHour

My favourite spring hedgerow flower, greater stitchwort. #WildflowerHour

Peony from my mother's garden, dug up before her house was sold after she died. #gardenflowers

A scattered tapestry of lousewort was one of the many wonderful things at Dorset's Kingcombe nature reserve this week. #WildflowerHour

Four #CabbageFamily plants for #WildflowerHour. Jack-in-the-hedge, a favourite of orange tip butterfly caterpillars, cuckoo flower (ditto), a miniature garden of common Whitlow grass by a lamp-post and wavy bittercress.

Late for #WildflowerHour but #WoodlandPlants have been wondrous this week with the first bluebells and ramsons joining violets, wood anemones and cherry blossom and the biggest patch of town hall clock I've ever seen (approx 4 feet across).

The sky was blue, the first House Martin returned to my street, I heard my first willow warbler of the year in the Oswestry hills and saw a brimstone. Such joy. Then I read about the oil slick threatening one of the most valuable wetlands in the Middle East and my heart sank.

First cowslip where there will soon be a thousand of them. This little field was grazed bald when my partner bought it 16 years ago but has gradually grown into a wonderful flower-rich meadow. #WildflowerHour

Ladysmock, cuckoo flower, a beauty by any name, just opening out now.

Time to give bog mosses their rightful due!

A galaxy of celandines opened to the sun around this oak tree. Photo taken looking down from an old railway bridge.

Kingcups! One of my favourite marsh plants

Did you watch Dirty Business? I can't believe how much water companies have gotten away with. They're putting profit before public health - it’s a scandal and the Government MUST take action! Sick of sewage? Add your name to the petition today: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/en...

On a hilltop in Wales with a friend yesterday, we found this feather. Curious, I asked my birding friends what bird it was from. Woodcock! And then I discovered that the white tip of a woodcock's tail feathers is a brighter white than any other bird's. Ideal for dusk courtship displays. #feathers

A coltsfoot flower opened its radiant flower, just where I always find it first. #WildflowerHour

Field speedwell growing in a crack between pavement and wall outside my house finally opened its petals this week after 4 months in bud, surviving frost and snow. A hardy soul. #WildflowerHour

Some 35 years ago my mother collected handfuls of wild daffodil bulbs, thrown up by the plough on a neighbouring field in Dorset, which was then cultivated for maize. She planted them in a dingle on her own land, where they multiplied each year. She gave me a few for my garden and I love them.

First sighting of 2026 of the crimson, female flower of hazel: the nearest thing to a sea anemone in landlocked Shropshire. #WildflowerHour

The glossy, leathery leaves of spurge laurel act as umbrellas, the fragrant flowers hanging down to avoid catching raindrops. Petty spurge flowers are like tiny, pale suns, the dandelion soaking up a ray of afternoon sun. Primroses and stinking hellebore herald spring! #WildflowerHour

Blackbird singing in the rain.

Great news from Scotland www.theguardian.com/environment/.... Now England must follow.

Ancient oak on the Shropshire/Wales border. It would take four people with their arms outstretched to give this tree a proper hug. #fattrunkTuesday

"No sight ever pleases me so well as the snowdrops now in the wilderness," wrote the renowned botanist Edward Lloyd in 1668, referring to his garden and home near Oswestry. The house is long gone but along the path through its ruins the snowdrops continue to flourish and delight. #WildflowerHour

Just 4 flowers for #WildflowerHour after the snow and frost.

Misty gold sunset on the Shropshire border looking into Wales.

Oak tree in Melverley, Shropshire #thicktrunktuesday

Snow on the ground but a woodpecker is drumming!

New Year's Day brightness: guelder rose berries with old man's beard seed heads.

A new year's greeting from a wheezing greenfinch and 33 fieldfares on my morning walk. #birdsong

Late again... Finding wildflowers in late December worries me but never fails to bring joy. The perfect daisy and primrose, the soggy, struggling hawkbit and that too-early catkin, each of them alive with promise. #WildflowerHour. Primrose, daisy, strawberry, buttercup, hazel catkin and hawkbit.

Starling murmuration at Whixall Moss, just after sunset.

Eleven hours late for #WildflowerHour but these brave flowers deserve their moment: viper's bugloss and common century (doomed never to open its petals), a celandine and a wonderfully fresh daisy.