White and Green, Green and White

Hurrying towards Summer and ignoring the essence of May, complaining about the showers that propose to bring flowers and missing the remedies growing wild in the damp and mild, we swirl in our busy lives trapped in cars.

Awash with white flowers in May, the hedgerows are wild right now. The roadsides are drenched in cow parsley with its delicate flowers on ballerina thin stems. These are wonderful in tall vases and they magically create still life drama to any space.

The fields are bordered with hawthorn veiled in bridal white. Did you know these are the fairy trees? Look for a copy of the heartbreaking yet wonderful childhood tale Under the Hawthorn Tree set in the great famine of Ireland and fill your heart with fairy lore.

Meanwhile the grandfather horse chestnut trees are festooned with Summer candles and meanwhile, their landlubbing compatriots, the great dandelion clocks are frolicking in the grass.

You can gather abundant nettles (with gloves on of course) to make nettle soup – a natural preventer of hayfever. There is a lovely simple recipe here.

I discovered dandelion honey on Instagram via Hamwood Lost Gardens here, which are, by the way, a perfect place to visit and explore in Meath, see their website here for opening times. Another account I love is Erica in Ireland and her recipe suggestion for dandelion wine is superb.

In France and Switzerland, the salad leaves ‘dents de lion’ are packaged for sale in supermarkets and hailed for the marvellous health benefits. If you live in the countryside you can benefit from picking your own, and some wild garlic too, which is in season now – perfect for pesto.

All of this white and green, green and white, could not be described more beautifully than in the words of Rossetti.

Silent Noon

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 

Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge

Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

          -Dante Gabriel Rossetti