Welcoming Wild Flowers

I was walking through the garden one morning to see if the gooseberries were ripe and caught sight of a tiny wild mallow growing nearby.  I was reminded how delicate and charming some of these tiny plants are in comparison to their larger cousins. This one, Malva sylvestris is paler and very  low growing compared with the robust tree mallow I grow by the hedge.

Wild mallow Malva Sylvestris

Rose mallow,  Lavatera trimestris against a wall 

Another tiny flower is Herb Robert (Geranium robertium) or  Common Storksbill, an ancient grandparent of the various hardy geraniums I grow such as Rosanne, Rose Clair, Johnson's Blue, and psilostemon - unpronouncable name but fantastic bright puce flowers with a black eye. The tiny Herb Robert puts itself all around in the garden, filling bare gaps and tumbling over fences. It's easy to pull up and has a strong acrid smell that some people find offensive but which I find characteristic of its determined nature.

Herb Robert, Geranium robertium)

Big sister Geranium psilostemon

But wild flowers (or what many people call weeds) are welcome in my garden for many other reasons. Here I will look at  few of those I find useful, interesting, and inviting to other lives that inhabit the garden. These enterprising invaders enhance my patch in various different ways, some hiding shyly in unobserved corners, others creating spreads of colour and filling in spaces of bare earth. The trick is to absorb and enjoy them without allowing them to take over.

Dandelions have long tap roots with buds already forming under the earth so they are difficult to get rid of, but because of their long roots, they bring up nutrients otherwise difficult for many plants to obtain. Anyway they are gorgeously decorative and I pick the young leaves to put in salads.  Once on holiday in Friesland I came across a field of dandelions that were so huge and healthy and yellow, I thought they must be some sort of Dutch arable crop.

There is the Red Campion (Silene dioica), that introduced itself years ago and has found a section near the north facing wall which suits it well and allows it to create bright pink in clumps in early to late spring. If I find something I want to plant in its place, it's easy to pull up  and will come back next year to fill any bare patches very satisfactorily.

Red Campion in a cloudy pink clump in May

Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempavirens) is a large plant with hairy leaves and sky blue flowers, that I allow to grow here and there because it is pretty, fills gaps and is loved by pollinators. 

Pretty blue Alkanet 

I don't know how primroses found the way to the garden, but they are very much at home in the soggy clay and have spread themselves all over the garden with great abandon. I think their exquisite shape and clear pale yellow beat their spectacular relatives the polyanthus - though those are fine in the right place.  Forget-me-nots too are highly welcome, as long as I remember to pull them up the moment they begin to wilt or when they start to suffocate any plants trying to come up underneath them. Welsh poppies (Meconopsis cambrica) I would never be without, flowering and seeding themselves all summer and speckling the garden with clear yellow and orange tissue paper flowers, which complement almost any other flower in the garden being so eye-catching yet so delicate.

The daisy's big relative Aster frikartii Mönch

Daisies (Bellis perennis) in the lawn 

In what used to be the lawn until this year, and is now a grassy meadow-like patch, I have buttercups, daisies, clover and Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris), a creeping member of the mint family I believe, with deep purple bracts and touches of red on the whorled flowers.  The daisies, of course are relatives of all the aster family and in spite of their small size, are popular with pollinators, like so many miniscule flowers. 

Self Heal, a herb as well as a wild flower,  growing in a crack in the patio

I have several identification books on wild flowers but they are mostly out of print now. Among the latest available, which I don't yet have but which has been recommended is Harrap's Wild Flowers by Simon Harrap, (Bloomsbury Natural History, 2013) consisting of 2000 easily identifiable colour photos with helpful descriptions.