THE PLATT

LOOKING IS NEVER ENOUGH — SEEING IS ESSENTIAL FOR US TO UNDERSTAND. THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO DISCOVER. 

“People come to nature as they come to church, to experience something greater than themselves, a silence and awe that allows them to reflect on themselves and their place in the world.” 

I had a myriad of thoughts in my head as to how I should commence starting to articulate what summer in Cornwall has meant to me, to Michelle and Matt and of course our two dogs, Minnie & Ed. I aim to be explicit in saying what that small piece of land has done for us and what we have done for it and will to continue to do for. It should be simple enough but in the time we were there we discovered many aspects that I can write about later. 

I am now in possession of Wild Service, a book edited by by Nick Hayes and Jon Moses. It is eye-catching front cover with a suitable green as the base with the gold symbols of, I believe, the Green Man. ‘He’ is the caricature of the natural world that is a constant for me. I have skimmed the prologue of eight pages and there in only a few they relay important messages for a healthy and a good life. My opening is a quote from it in an to attempt to set the tone of what nature can do and what I believe in. “People come to nature as they come to church, to experience something greater than themselves, a silence and awe that allows them to reflect on themselves and their place in the world.” After making the previous comments I can reflect and write on what we saw and realised what we had. 

When we arrived, we only had a window of two hours, before more rain would return, to settle in. Sitting in the quiet and seeing the beauty that lay around was peaceful. Seed heads of some grasses now bent their heads, subdued by the weight of the rain drops. Wonder in front of us like pearls on a string. All we had to do was to be there. 

What was good to see was that ‘The Platt’, our own piece of land in North Cornwall, was showing off its natural beauty. It was a lot to take in and in the days thereafter we noticed more and more of what was growing in and through the luxurious greenery of the plants. Not only did different plants and flowers emerge but so did slugs, snails and insects. There were other things discovered too. What was so striking were the 2 metre high Foxgloves. (Digitalis in Latin, where the leaves are dried to provide digoxin and digitoxin). They were everywhere dominating the eye line as we looked around. They had been flowering well before we arrived and the blooms on the lower stems were turning into seed pods while the upper blooms were strikingly pinkish-purple and a honey-pot for bees and nectar requiring insects. 

By the time August was ending Foxgloves had ‘gone over’ except for the odd one. However their pillar-stems still stood tall. It was said that it had been a good year for them in Cornwall, but last time they were barely noticeable and like many plant species good years can be cyclical. Last summer we had a ‘patch’ of Red Campions but this year they were not as evident. 

We were amazed at our Foxgloves and in another part, where there was more luxurious growth, we saw stems emerging that would later support whiteish flowers. It was unknown to us although we must have seen it before. It rejoices in the name of Angelica Archangelica and is noticeable with an its purple stems and how the new leaves emerge from their ‘cucoon’. Research into it seems to contradict itself, but our one could carry the name of ‘atropurpurea’; a name that reflects the purple coloring on its stems. These are hollow and can be eaten like one would crunch on a celery stick - hence the name ‘Wild Celery’. I lifted this: Angelica Archangelica ‘Flower: Convex to round clusters (umbels) 4 to 9 inches across, made up of 20 to 45 smaller round clusters (umbellets) of 20 to 45 flowers each. Flower stalks are about ½ inch long and umbellet stalks are 2 to 4 inches long.’ The flower are white and slightly green in colour and turn to dark even a dingy colour as they turn to seed. Importantly the flowers are attractive to bees and other pollinators. Slugs nibble at them too. Apparently they are highly attractive to lygus bugs, thrips, aphids, root maggot flies, leaf hoppers and weevils. Who would know that? They are impressive as the photos will show.