The first and the last wild rose

 Burnet rose Rosa pimpinellifolia is always the first wild rose to come into bloom, in late May, and also the last the continue blooming; I have found it in flower on Christmas day in years when the winter is mild. It's currently putting on a fine early-autumn display at my local nature reserve, Durham Wildlife Trust's Low Barns reserve at Witton-le-Wear. On a chilly autumn day just one sniff of its intense scent takes me right back to warm summer afternoons.

Rosa pimpinellifolia is the prickliest of all the wild roses and the easiest to identify, because the hips ripen to deep purple and then to black as autumn progresses. It's most often found on coastal sites, in sea cliffs and sand dunes, but there are a few places in Weardale where it grows in hedgerows. Some of these are close to habitation, which may be a reflection of it being cultivated in the past and then escaping back into the wild. These days, most gardeners would find it too invasive because it suckers freely, but cultivars known as Scotch roses have been grown for centuries, as Rosa spinosissima.

Wild roses

The peak flowering period for wild roses here has now passed, but there have been some wonderful displays of these summer flowers in the hedges in the lanes where I live.

Nothing says 'summer day' better than wild roses, and a shower of rain can even enhance their beauty. Their fragrance is most intense when the air is warm and humid.

Burnet rose, with its gold-centred, creamy-white blooms is the most fragrant of all. New hedges were planted in the farmland beside these lanes after the land was restored from opencast coal mining, and the contractor included burnet rose in the mix of hedgerow shrubs. This year the burnet rose display was the best that I can remember.

All of these hedges - old and new - are mechanically trimmed at the end of winter but, unlike most hedgerow shrubs, roses seem to respond well to this brutal pruning.

Open, bowl-shaped flowers offer easy access to pollen and nectar for insects, like this drone fly.

When wild roses aren't entangled within a hedge they develop this lovely arching architectural form

Foxgloves and wild roses near Blanchland, in Northumberland.

Given time and support from hedgerow trees, wild roses like this one can grow fifteen feet tall.

This is sweet briar, also known as eglantine, and this species has fragrant foliage. If you gently rub the underside of the leaves a warm, apple fragrance is released from resin glands on their surface,

Weardale in early summer: St. John's Chapel

Weardale is at its most beautiful in June.  These are a few photographs taken recently around the village of St. John's Chapel, in the middle of the dale.

Burnet rose, the most fragrant of all the native wild roses.

A single wood cranesbill plant in a sea of buttercups.

Meadows full of buttercups, seen from Chapel fell

A froth of cow parsley flowers along roadsides and around the edge of fields.

Hawthorn in bloom along the footpath beside the river Wear

Hawthorn still blooming beside Harthope burn. Water levels are low after a very dry spring.

Glorious hay meadows

Lady's mantle and wood cranesbill

Meadow foxtail grass in flower

Pignut's lacy umbels

Lambs fattening

Wood cranesbill

Roses, noses and bathtime

It's wild rose time and the most fragrant British species by far is burnet rose Rosa pimpinellifolia. It has a strange distribution here in Country Durham - mostly coastal but with a few inland populations - perhaps because people planted it in their gardens in the past. This one was photographed at Durham Wildlife Trust's Low Barns Nature Reserve.

We live in an age dominated by visual images, especially on the internet, but wild flowers can engage all the senses, and especially the sense of smell. A few years ago I found this book -The Scented Wild Flowers of Britain by Roy Genders - in a second-hand bookshop and it opened up a new dimension in botanising. It's not just flowers that are scented - leaves and roots of many species also have their own distinctive aroma.

The problem is that having reached three score years and five my sense of smell isn't as acute as it once was - and the fragrance of  many species is quite subtle. Just sniffing the flower when its scent is diluted by the passing breeze isn't enough. So that's why I always carry ......

... a small, screw-top plastic tube. If you just put the flower (in this case red clover which has a delicious peppery sweetness) in this enclosed space for a few minutes the volatile fragrance is concentrated in a small volume of air and is very easy to detect. For leaves, crushing them before you put them in the tube releases the scent much more efficiently.

Fragrances famously stimulate the memory and recollection of past experiences. For me the scent of this plant, meadow rue Thalictrum flavum, brings back memories of bathing our children when they were babies, nearly forty years ago. Its flowers have a comforting, slightly antiseptic smell that mimics the fragrance of the brand of baby talcum powder that we used on them. These days I find it quite difficult to detect the smell of the flower in the open air but when I enclose it in the plastic tube for a minute or two it immediately becomes apparent.

A walk around St. John's Chapel, Weardale

These pictures were taken at the end of June, during a walk from St.John's Chapel in Weardale onto the slopes of Chapel Fell, then down into Daddry Shield and back along the river Wear to St.John's Chapel. It's a great circular walk, with splendid views, and when you get to the highest point the only sounds come from wind, water and birds.

Down in the valley, at Harthope Burn, hawthorn was still in peak blossom - incredibly late this year.

The path up onto the fell is along a wide, stony track fringed with drifts of wood cranesbill, lady's mantle and cow parsley - a natural perennial herbaceous border. Garden designers at the Chelsea Flower Show spend a fortune trying to replicate this.

In the foreground, wood cranesbill; in the background fields full of buttercups which have produced a memorable spectacle this year. Poor grass growth in the late spring prevented farmers taking an early crop, so the buttercups and cow parsley in the meadows have benefited from a stay of execution.

When we reached the highest point on the walk we were briefly surrounded by a flock of swifts that treated us to a display of aerobatics. 

The last deciduous tree on the path up - a rowan, in full bloom. Legend has it that these were planted around farm houses to ward off witches.

Meadow pipits are one of the commonest birds in the high pastures

The last flowery meadow - above this elevation the pastures are rough grass and rushes.

The views into upper Weardale from here are stunning.

The lapwings had chicks so were keen to deflect our attention.

Back down in the valley, at Daddry Shiield, burnet rose was in full bloom. This is the first wild rose species to flower here in summer and by far the most fragrant.

A haymeadow, along the footpath beside the river Wear between Daddry Shield and St. John's Chapel.

Hay rattle is the characteristic wild flower in these old meadows.

Marsh orchids, flowering on the river bank.

A young rabbit, wondering whether to stay put or bolt for cover.

Snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum, tumbling over stone walls in St. John's Chapel.

A perfect summer day.