As June starts to crank up the temperatures here, the orchids are ending their spectacular flowering season and dying back. They started quite early this year with loads of common purples at the Jarze wood, and in the One Acre Wood - which was sadly neglected through May due to rain and other projects - seemed to have had two fine examples of the genre, which are now just dessicated flower spikes. Next year we hope to see them in bloom once again.
With John doing a lot of lawns currently and doing several of these by walk behind mower rather than ride on, he has been able to spot the rosettes of orchids and not mow over them but has given them a chance to flower. A few people who didn't know they had orchids, or suspected but didn't know what they had got, have had pleasant surprises.
Perhaps the flashiest of the lawn based orchids, though not the most colourful, is the lizard orchid - this example is nearly 2 foot high!
Rather prettier but smaller and harder to spot is the bee orchid, shown here, and small at less than a foot high.
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