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On the way back today this awesome old Pear tree, that grows at the base of a raised section of railway, had dropped ripe fruit - all very small but smelled incredibly boozy. Sadly all seemed to have damaged on dropping so nothing I could sample for taste

Seed collection of the Floodplain Meadow ecotypes of Common Knapweed and Great Burnet today. I think I was maybe a week late as the Field Voles? mice? had beaten me to quite a few of them. Scattered the seeds in a nearby (ungrazed/uncut) floodplain field to see what happens

Super-fluffy clone of Creeping Thistle all along a road verge. Creeping Thistle is surprisingly variable in flower colour, spread and fluffyness, although the latter only for female plants

Was looking at some Great Burnet* in an old churchyard yesterday and discussing with @wonkyeggs.bsky.social about the wider leaflets/taller flower-stalk/later flowering compared to local Floodplain Meadow ecotype (second pic from 6 July) *photo doesn't do it justice sadly #WildflowerHour

A white-flowered Common Knapweed and a very unusual lilac coloured one too this week #WildflowerHour

Great survey from Jack below to get an idea of what copes well with the drought - do fill it out if you have time. I've been thinking that it makes more sense in dry summers to have wildflowers in our urban grasslands as it reduces fire risk

Eyebright looking very small but #StillFlowering at South Gare (with a bit of even smaller Lady's Bedstraw in the second photo) #WildflowerHour

Sea Holly has just started flowering at its only location at South Gare #WildflowerHour

Marsh Fragrant-orchid growing in a damp spot on the cliffs near Saltburn-by-the-Sea #WildflowerHour

Amongst the massed ranks of Wild Onion (Allium vineale) plants at South Gare (River Tees Estuary) that were just heads of bulbils on stalks*, I managed to find one in flower - they don't do much flowering #StillFlowering #WildflowerHour *if you look carefully (right) there is #RabbitPoo for scale

Harebells looking 😍 in their thousands amongst a parched landscape of old sand dunes at South Gare (River Tees Estuary) #StillFlowering #WildflowerHour

I'm taking botanical artist friends of mine to South Gare this weekend and so will be excited to show them the many colours of Harebell as well as how some nod their heads but others point them to the side or up a bit

One of our great flower spectacles in the Tees Valley is the sand dune Harebells at South Gare. It's parched there this year and they are still spectacular 😍 (it feels much more exciting to be amongst them compared to how I've photographed them, but you can see how many there are!)

Saw this very beautiful photo and immediately thought of Susanna Clarke's book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (although the images in my head from the book are all darker, I'm sure there must have been a moment of elation)

We kept seeing this along the base of roadside hedgerows and it looked so good I couldn't understand why we haven't added it to the modern grass-garden set of plants as it must be ideally suited to that way of gardening and really looks the part at this time of year.

Marsh Ragwort at a local SUDs where it appeared after the earthworks and has appeared every year quite happily since then #WildflowerHour