I always have very mixed feelings about Rosebay Willowherb. I love its name, and its pink-purple spikes adorn any forest margin: an anarchic explosion of colour amidst the green. And yet, and yet...it signals the start of summer's stately and irreversible decline, so seeing it is so bittersweet.
I love it for all those reasons. Including the heralding of a season change.
Is summer to autumn the toughest season change though? Or is autumn to winter worse?
Winter to spring, I think. So many false starts, plus hay fever...
Oh! Didn't expect that! I can't bear the dark so anything better than autumn to winter...
It also stinks to high heaven of vomit! We call them sick flowers in our family 😂
😀
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Lovely poem
As children we used to pull it up with one hand, strip off all the leaves and flowers and throw it at each other in a spear fight!
We shredded the leaves, stuffed them inside giant hogweed stems and smoked it...probably highly toxic!