Country diary: Mountain plants take root in a derelict chapel | Jennifer Jones

Allerton, Merseyside: This cemetery is the resting place for famous names, and home to plants that are far from their preferred cliffs and rocky slopesThe names of Liverpool luminaries are what bring many people to Allerton cemetery, it being the resting place of Cilla Black, Ken Dodd and Julia Lennon (mother of John). I, however, am here for the plants. On a still autumn day I make my way to the mortuary chapels, standing out in the grey with their red desert sandstone, hewn from the nearby Woolton quarry. There are three, consecrated for Church of England, nonconformist and Roman Catholic faiths. Around them, the Grade II-listed cemetery has the air of a public park with its broad central avenue, geometric design and extensive planting of evergreen species.Disused since 1975, the chapels hear no sorrowful footfall now. The windows are boarded up, the stained glass no longer dispenses prisms of light. The only visitors are the corvids, wood pigeons and gulls roosting inside and out. The external walls provide sanctuary for a surprising wealth of plants, though, for those willing to look closely. Beneath the ubiquitous buddleia bursting from the steeples and alcoves, there are refugees from mountain sites. These plants have taken root in the mortar of the buildings, the weathering composite mimicking the scree of their preferred homes. Adept at gaining their food in unusual ways, they can live without soil, absorbing nutrients from the mortar, rainfall and even bird droppings. Continue reading...