How many wildflowers have you seen today? More than you think, I’m willing to wager.

Wildflowers can be remarkably resilient and often pop up in all  kinds of unlikely places – roadside embankments, at the edges of farmers’ fields, in the cracks and crevices between paving stones and even growing out of walls. You don’t have to live next door to a nature reserve to see wildflowers every day.

Some people call them ‘weeds’, a rather judgemental term in my opinion. Weeds are often defined to be plants that are growing in the wrong place. But, until we became farmers and gardeners, there was no ‘wrong place’. Indeed, many of the plants termed ‘weeds’ today were used as feed for livestock (e.g. sow thistle), herbs for healing (e.g. woundwort) or sources of natural dyes for clothing (e.g. dyer’s greenweed) 100 or more years ago.

The word ‘weed’ originates from the Old English ‘woed’, which meant a plant that grows abundantly. And you can learn a lot about your soil from the weeds that grow well in it; nettles love nutrient-rich soil, for example, whilst poppies enjoy recently disturbed soil, and many orchids need undisturbed, nutrient-poor places to thrive. So, the term ‘weed’ wouldn’t be judgemental, given this definition. Nevertheless, ‘locally abundant wild flower’ does sound much nicer.

And, weeds are not all ugly or insignificant, either. What can be more uplifting than a field or embankment full of glorious, letter-box red poppies? A personal wildflower favourite of mine is the wild pansy, a beautiful miniature version of the pansies we buy in garden centres, but which grows wild on free-draining, arable land. And how much fun are the tiny mauve ‘bunny mouths’ of ivy-leaved toadflax that spring from many old brick walls? Meanwhile, pineapple mayweed may not have the most beautiful flowers you have ever seen, but you only need to tread on them (this plant often grows on the compacted soil of well-trodden paths) to discover how it got its name! How can a British weed smell exactly like an exotic fruit?

I started collecting wildflowers when I was 10, pressing them between sheets of old blotting paper and newspaper, between two pieces of hardboard my dad found for me, under a pile of encyclopaedias. I lived on a housing estate and found my precious flowers growing between curb stones, on the edge of people’s allotments (some were less well weeded than others, thank goodness!), growing out of cracks in walls and occasionally in my dad’s flower beds. I still have my collection.

Nowadays, you don’t need to pick a flower to collect it, just take a close-up picture with your mobile phone. And you don’t need a guidebook to identify them, either. There are plenty of free apps that you can download onto your phone and carry around with you. Then, when you see something that you don’t recognise, just take a photo, load it into the app and the magic of modern technology will tell you what you have found.

If you, or your children, like a bit of competitive fun, why not sign up to The Essex Bioblitz, a citizen science project run jointly by the Essex Wildlife Trust and the University of Essex to monitor the effects of climate change on flowering plants in Essex. Currently, more than 600 people are taking part. All you need to do is snap photos of the flowers you see when out for a walk (which can be on the way to the shops or school, just as easily as a weekend trip to a local nature reserve), load them into the app, find out what they are and see how you are doing compared with the other contributors. I can tell you, it is quite addictive!

How to take part

Sue Huggett

Campaigns Volunteer