- 01 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Anemone
A detail from a fine spread of Anemones set in a domestic garden.
- 02 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Clematis
This buttery white Clematis was growing vigorously over a garden wall.
- 03 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Ox-eye Daisy
2011 saw a prolific crop of Ox-eye daisies in fields and hedgerows near my home. A large roundabout junction on a dual carriageway wore a vast and splendid carpet of them until they were all cut down in full-flower. Reaching no more than a couple of feet in height, the local highways authority maintenance contractors explained that they posed a health and safety hazard to passing traffic.
- 04 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Ox-eye Daisy
This swathe of roadside daisies was shadowed throughout the day by mature hawthorns until the summer sun reached them in the late afternoon.
- 05 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Hogweed
On a walkabout I found this specimen growing in the deep shade cast by a row of mature trees.
- 06 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Wisteria
A Wisteria climbs the façade of a building in a local public park.
- 07 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Chestnut and Maple
I liked the contrast between the bold chestnut and the delicate maple.
- 08 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Chestnut
Branches from this chestnut tree overhang a high garden wall on the other side of my street. Not a native variety, its large and waxy palmate leaves shift from deep green to a beautiful autumnal gold. The fruits are large and in a brown shade that is almost black. Unlike those of the native horse chestnut, their green cases are almost as thin and supple as glove leather.
- 09 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Horse Chestnut
This modestly scaled horse chestnut stands on a tight site between village houses and a river. Its leaves seemed in bud one day and miraculously fledged the next, their delicacy as yet untouched by weather or insects. The nascent flower spike was easy to overlook when walking by.
- 10 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Barley
A detail shot from a field of barley maturing close to my home. I like to watch the delicate heads move in gentle waves created by the slightest breeze. The spare punctuation of red poppies was in great contrast to their floods of colour in nearby fields.
- 11 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Red Campion
A stand of perennial Red Campion grows alongside a tall hedge that’s joined for a short way by a brook. It’s on a favourite walk along a narrow lane that climbs the valley side above my home.
- 12 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Hedgerow flowers
Parsley, Red Campion and Stinging Nettle mingle under the protection of a Hawthorn hedge.
- 13 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Woodland plants
Bluebells, Garlic, Goose-grass, Nettles, Willow Herb, an Elm seedling and Mare’s Tails share a patch of damp ground by a woodland path.
- 14 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Maple
The delicate colours and the intricacies of the layered positive and negative shapes appealed.
- 15 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Victoria Plum
This aged plum tree grows against the wall by my front door. It fruits without fail but rarely as generously as in 2011.
- 16 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Honeysuckle
I like the scent and sight of honeysuckle whether yellow and wild in a country hedgerow or on a bolder and more colourful scale in a garden. I combined two photographs to create further texture and colour.
- 17 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Field Poppies
2011 was a vintage year for Field Poppy displays around my home village. I had photographed the fields in past years but wanted to achieve something a little different. Apart from cropping the lower edge of the image, this is as it emerged from the camera.
- 18 FLOWERS & PLANTS 3 | Field Poppies
This composition combines two untouched exposures made at the same time as Image 17.