Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
As part of a revamp of our front garden, I’ve just replanted half a bucket of daffodils, which, as they were all tête-à-tête, amounted to several hundred. I split any that were ready for splitting. They were already just starting to sprout so they should be in flower in a month or two.
Meanwhile I drew these larger shop-bought daffodils opening, using the Bellerive Pen in Procreate, drawing with an Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro.
New Zealand Flax, Phormium tenax, Premier Inn, North Chesterfield.
Immediately I start drawing, a hoverfly zooms in and settle on the lime green top of my pen. As I work there’s a continuous chiff chaff and a v. loud blackbird, with house martins chittering overhead.
Despite several overnight frost setbacks our veg is making progress.
A closer look at some of the uninvited plants which have made themselves at home around the raised bed behind the pond: groundsel in the disturbed soil (we do occasionally dig it) on top of the bed, lungwort at the edge of the wood-chip path and Spanish bluebell in damper soil.
A couple of house plants: a fern and our new sail plant, Spathiphyllum.
The Peace Lily, Spathiphyllum, isn’t a lily but a member of the Arum family, so related to Cuckoo Pint, also known as Wild Arum.
As I draw the hyacinth, there’s a scent that reminds me of bluebell woods, a reminder that in a week’s time the days will be starting to get longer so spring isn’t too far away.
Seedheads of common knapweed, Centaurea nigra, from my patch of wildflower meadow at the end of the garden.
Growing beside our compost bins, Smooth Sow-thistle, Sonchus oleraceus, is a common weed of disturbed ground.
The Collins flower guide mentions the ‘acute, spreading auricles’ at the base of the leaves as a diagnostic feature.
It steadily flopped as I drew it but since I finished it has perked up again, so I might get another chance to add a drawing of the shape of the leaf.
A guest illustrator in my nature diary in the July ‘Dalesman’: Jenny Hawksley, who joined us for a lightning tour of the North Yorks Moors and coast last summer drew the garland of wild flowers.
Fine strands of dodder twirl around the clusters of flowers at the top of this curled dock’s stem. Dodder is a parasitic climbing plant, a member of the convolvulus family.