I can name some wild flowers, but not all, and not as many as I could as a child growing up in the country. Celia is more or less the same. So on our walk in the Surrey Hills last week there was quite a lot of “Look at that pink/blue/yellow flower. Do you know hat it’s called?” “No, it’s pretty, isn’t it?”
We were fine on Scarlet Pimpernels, English Bluebells, Celandines (though at first glance i thought they were Primroses), but that left a fair number of “it’s pretty, isn’t it?” moments. I’m hoping that you will help us to correct our ignorance.
These blue flowers made wonderful displays of colour on some of the shaded parts of our walk/
Blue close up
En masse blue
Not a buttercup
Pink Pimpernel?
Blue and white
Wallflowers
Celia loves a bit of lichen. I don’t know if she can name any of the different types. I can’t.
Lichen
Over to you.
Isobel (and Cat)'s Blog 
Your pretty blue plant is alkanet, I’m almost certain. It’s a member of the boraginaceae family and for ages I thought it was vipers bugloss but I was wrong. Last year I did a really thorough search and came up with alkanet, a name I have difficulty retaining so had to look again last week when trying to remember its name. It is gorgeous, and anyone with it in their garden will execrate it. Like all of that family, it roots very deeply and is enormously difficult to get rid of, while self-propagating immensely successfully.
The little purple flower that trails and has ivy-like leaves is a toadflax. I adore it and have encouraged it in the garden. The yellow floing plant also grows in my garden but I now root it out as fast as I can. It’s a brassica and I think it might be charlock. It selfseeds astonishingly prolifically. The leaves are probably edible but not once it is flowering.
Ten points for a super fast reply!
Flowing = flowering. The yellow flowering plant has extremely decorative leaves which is a snare and a delusion as one plant can produce hundreds of seeds. I’m not sure it’s charlock but if it isn’t it’s another close relative.
Blue Alkanet and creeping one Ivy Leaved Toadflax not sure of the others though…sorry!
Thanks Ann. We’ll get there in the end I hope!
No, I’ve long since forgot what I knew!