On Tue, 16 Jun 2015 22:20:36 +0100, David Hill wrote:

On 16/06/2015 21:21, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 16/06/2015 18:44, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
Just taken some visitors keen on seeing some of our wild flowers to a
usually very good
site for a variety of species, including several nice orchdis, to find
everything well
behind this year. Instead of saying "you should have been here last
week", it was a
question of saying "you should have come next week or even the week
after".

pricks up ears A gardener who knows about wild orchids? Perhaps you
can help.

Last summer - our first in this house - I noticed an odd looking plant
in the grass, and as it was at the edge I let it grow to see what would
happen. It turned out to be a bee orchid. This years I've got my eye in,
and I've found a couple of dozen. They're just coming in to flower.

They've obviously survived at least 15 years of just being mowed - but
what's the best way to make them flourish?

Andy
I don't know why but this year I've got Helleborines shooting up everywhere.
I normally get around 10 but this year I must have at least 50, one
clump is around 20.
No idea why they are so prolific this year.

Typical orchid behaviour! I monitor sites annually for Greater and Lesser Butterfly, Frog,
Pyramidal and Marsh Helleborine and have recorded great variations in numbers, from a few
tens to several hundreds in different years.