{"id":1211,"date":"2023-06-08T19:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1211"},"modified":"2023-06-08T19:00:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:00:04","slug":"2023-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/2023-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 so far …"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

14\/5\/2023: It all started really well – the cool\/windy Spring made everything a bit slow to get going but we got some lovely flowers and the Monkey Orchids (Orchis simia<\/em>) seemed to have had a better year that last year. In 2022 the Spring was already very dry even before the Summer heatwave & drought hit but that didn’t seem to adversely affect the 2023 orchid numbers at all, thankfully, though Pasque Flowers were down a bit in numbers. The hybrids (Orchis purpurea x simia = x angusticruris<\/em>) were about the same as last year and looked glorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only real disappointment was that the regular Lady Orchid (Orchis purpurea<\/em>) this year didn’t appear .. well, it did but the spike was eaten off by deer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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hybrid Lady Orchid x Monkey Orchid (Orchis purpurea x simia = x angusticruris)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Monkey Orchid (Orchis simia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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hybrid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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hybrid colony<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pasque Flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The really good news of the year was over on slope 4 though, with 2 Monkey Orchids reappearing under the beech tree where we used to have a colony of 15-20 plants. This area had been hit time and time again by drought and I thought the plants had all died off because we hadn’t seen any in a few years but no, they were hanging on and just waiting to get a bit of rain!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26\/5\/2023: Then over in the middle of slope 4, below the Pasque Flower area, one of our visitors spotted a new patch of Monkey Orchids growing where we had had a single plant a few years ago. We managed to count over 20 plants on the day but I’m sure we missed some. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2 Monkey Orchids below the beech tree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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new colony of Monkey Orchids below the Pasque Flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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8\/6\/2023: As the main orchid season comes to a close there is still a lot of colour on the site – the 100s of bee orchids over on slope 4 are magnificent and the butterflies are still surprising me with Grizzled Skippers in slope 1 flying at the same time as Marbled Whites over on slope 4. What a crazy year! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was up on the site today and can confirm that the Monkey Orchids and hybrids are looking well past their best. There are still a few flowers that look passable but I think they will be well and truly over by next weekend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14\/5\/2023: It all started really well – the cool\/windy Spring made everything a bit slow to get going but we got some lovely flowers and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1227,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartslock.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}