Country diary: Thistles and poppies among the hard hats and concrete | Susie White

Hexham, Northumberland: On this scratchy piece of ground, abandoned to all but the plants, I count 24 speciesI've often walked past this spot on my way to the marketplace, briefly revelling in the flowers growing behind their tall metal cage. A stalled building project behind the 14th-century Moot Hall, the heaps of gravel and waste have sprouted into a community of pioneer plants. With camera and notebook, I now spend time really noticing what's there, a different experience to a moment in motion.At my feet and just inside the wire fence, ivy-leaved toadflax coils its fine stems around a manhole cover. Knobbly heaps of biting stonecrop have infiltrated cracks in the concrete. Between a pile of breeze blocks and planning notices, a solitary spear thistle is all jagged prickliness and nectar. Continue reading...