Last month when my parents were up from Grimsby we took them to Banff to have a look round one of the old towns in NE Scotland - that is old as in Victorian old, not Roman old. Banff used to be a rich place but is a little run down because of the slump in fishing in the North East. It still has a lot of grandeur about it, coaching inns, public fountains and a majestic view over to Macduff.
While walking around I took a few snaps that highlighted some of the difference between Banff and grimsby wher eI grew up. Most of Grimsby (at the mouth of the River Humber) is built on marshes on the very, very, very, flat land of lincolnshire. For most of the year Lincolnshire suffers agricultural drought - the average rainfall is only around 22 inches - but the wonders of irrigation mean that the area is very productive. And the lack of rain in the summer mmeans that there are many long bright days. The place is relatively dry for the UK.
now Banff and north east Scotland are warm and wet (thanks to the Gulf Stream coming up the west coast and dipping down into the the North Sea - not as warm and wet as West Coast Scotland but still much wetter than where I grew up (which is like a rainforest compared to Libya where I am writing this). This wetness is reflected in the plants in Banff. You can see them hugging the tops of buildings - for example - see the ferns that grab every crevice on the side of the building above, or the moss roof of the building below.
Are these signs of neglect or just signs that simple plants have a better chance of thriving on the warmer and wetter Moray coast. Certainly I had only ever seen one fern in Grimsby while I was growing up - (on the inside of a water barrel at my Great Aunt's Ethel May's house) - but then I may not have been looking too closely. It would be very easy to say that these are signs of neglect but then I would be making assumptions - it is just as possible that the owners of these buildings wanted the ferns to stay on the walls or the moss on the roof. I know I would if I were them.
The house below was having its roof slates replaced but there were still strings of toadflax crawling around the edges of the upper windows. Surely that has to be deliberate - the plants were deliberately left in place rather than ripped out and throuwn down which would be the work of seconds for anyone up there taking off the tiles. Maybe guerilla gardening?
We have our own toadflax plants growing on the walls at the back and now creeping around the foot of the greenhouse. I must admint that I find the flap door -pretty easy to use and once it is secured at the bottom for the night I feel happier that the door won't blow open in the night like it did last year. The toadflax really seem to like the humidity and warmth in there, inside it is certainly lusher with bigger leaves and flowers. The plants are thriving on nothing more than bricks and mortar - literally. Now that is one tough plant.
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