Cleavers

4 February 2014

West Yorkshire

Hedgerows are gradually greening up. Cleavers is spreading on rough verges under roadside hedges, ready to scramble over emerging vegetation to get up into the hedge.

I'm hoping that this year I'll be able to keep the greater bindweed in check in the back garden but already it has found its way into a quarter of the length of the hedge.

Daisies are appearing on roadside verges, so far just two or three together and not the seven underfoot which is taken as a sign that spring has at last arrived.

By a stout south-facing stone wall by a school, smooth sow-thistle has survived the winter so far comparatively unscathed. Several plants, each about three feet tall, are dotted with yellow flowers.

Its relative the dandelion is another plant that seems never quite to have gone away through the winter.