April 2022 report

This month has been incredibly dry with virtually no rain, and more crucially it followed another fairly dry Spring month. This resulted in a big drop in Monkey Orchid (Orchis simia) numbers as they seem to put on their growth spurt right at the time that the rains failed. The Lady orchid (Orchis purpurea) and the hybrids (Orchis x angusticruris =O.purpurea x simia) seem to start earlier and so they got their growth done before the water all evaporated. That said, we did get a decent showing of Monkey orchids but most of the plants were hiding in the longer grass on the northern and western faces, where the soils seemed to be damper for longer.