Brockwell Park, 3rd May 2026

I wasn’t carrying my camera on this walk.  The idea was to have a quick pound around Brockwell to get some steps in and I didn’t want to get distracted.

I got distracted.

There’s a lot of flowers coming out at this time of year - even a casual walk around a park can find a load in different shapes and colours, so obviously I ended up hunting them.

Since I wasn’t carrying a camera, you’ll have to make do with snaps from my phone.

Herb Robert

The little pink one that looks like a geranium is, in fact, a type of geranium.  Generally found in the shade; this one was next to the middle pond.

Freshly picked leaves are said to be good at repelling mosquitoes.

Hawthorn

The hedges are full of flowering hawthorn at this time of year.  Also called ‘Mayflower’ because it flowered in May, the Olden Times not having much energy to spare on imagination.  These days it’s flowering by April and often as not done by May, as the year gets warmer earlier.

Leaves can apparently be used as a salad and the berries can be turned into wine.  Haven’t tried the leaves, the wine is interesting but no Georgian red.

Green Alkanet

This stuff comes up on every verge, and until I looked it up I called it ‘speedwell’, but it turns out that’s a different little blue flower that I’d find on the lanes in Cornwall.

The roots used to be roasted and ground as a coffee substitute.  Since they are toxic, I will not be attempting that.  

Oxford Ragwort

I love these little sunshines.  They spring up all over the place, both in the verges and patches of it in the middle of any unman bit of parkland.

Like Green Alkanet, it was an 18th-century introduction which spread rapidly, this time via the train tracks, as the ballast was a close match to the kind of ground it liked where it grew in its native Sicily.

Cow Parsley

This is one of the earliest and most prolific signs of spring, and for me they pretty much define the smell of country lanes - which makes it a little odd to find in the middle of London.  But cow parsley gets everywhere, enthusiastically.  Each plant produces a huge amount of seeds so it spreads easily.

Apparently everything you can see above ground is edible, tasting similar to chervil or parsley with a hint of aniseed.  You need to be careful when foraging, though, because it looks similar to hemlock, which is very much not edible.  Or at least, not more than once.

And finally…

No, they’re not flowers.  But the babies are back, another full set of 8 hatched and cheeping.