Becky’s Squares photo challenge has returned.

This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing.

You get the idea.

Seeing the garden awaken after months of deluge made me think that maybe seeing how nature renews itself might be my theme. My garden is my happy place and it will, I’m sure, help me to move forward.

At the very back of my garden is a large area used for parking and where the oil tank and septic tank reside. Being in the countryside you have to accept that mains sewerage systems and gas are not available along with very slow broadband. Alongside one edge of this area is a Cornish hedge which when we moved in was simply full of grass, weeds such as brambles and nettles. Over the last few years I have attempted to reconstruct it with the hope of eventually getting more of the local wildflowers to establish themselves there.

This year I am happy to report that Red Campion and Cow Parsley have made it their home. I just need to relocate a few wild foxgloves now.

Folklore tells that red campion flowers guard bees’ honey stores, as well as protecting fairies from being discovered. Red Campion has long been a symbol of love and beauty. It has a wonderful range of old names, including plum pudding (Essex, Somerset and Suffolk), red Jane, or red wolf (Somerset) and the wonderful gramfer-greygles (Dorset).

As for cow parsley which is burgeoning in the lanes now in May, the tiny white flowers feel gentle and feminine as they float gently in the breeze. In Somerset, it used to be known as Gypsy curtains or Gypsy lace, and in Wiltshire it was known as moonlight. However there is a dark side to it. In Yorkshire cow parsley was known as Mother’s die, possibly because it is similar in appearance to the deadly hemlock and may be picked by mistake. My mother would never allow it in the house.

‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
‘Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (1828-1882).