{"id":18657,"date":"2017-07-24T18:03:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=18657"},"modified":"2018-05-08T17:24:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T16:24:34","slug":"wild-flowers-in-west-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=18657","title":{"rendered":"Wild flowers in West London."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Bees are having a tough time around the world. Oddly, they are surviving very well in cities. One reason are the wild flower meadows in London and for some summer relief I thought I would tell you the story of the one shown below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We live in west London, in an area that was farmland as recently as the 1930s and used to produce vegetables and milk for the population of London. When the London underground (the “tube”) was extended into this rural west, housing sprung up around the central and metropolitan lines (Metroland<\/a>). In our case, the large meadows adjacent to the new housing were left undeveloped due to their propensity to become waterlogged and flooded from the nearby river Brent. Flood prevention schemes have now made such flooding largely a thing of the past and part of the meadows have been turned into a golf course. But the area that you see above is largely left to nature and in the normal course of events the grasses grow copiously and cause the local population to suffer mightily from hay fever between June-August.<\/p>\n

Not this year, when a tractor from the local council (Ealing) turned up in March and ploughed the grassy area up! For two months it lay fallow because there was almost no rain in May or June, but after several decent showers the area started to bloom and we all realized that the tractor must also have sown wild flower seeds. Its been a riot of colour for more than a month now and looks likely to continue for a little while yet. The bees love it (it’s not been such a good year for butterflies however). So do the human residents; you can see our house in the background! On a number of occasions now, contemplating the start of a new day, I have wandered out into the meadow, frankly with all thoughts of writing a blog abandoned. Except this one, since I did feel like sharing our pleasure. I cannot share the scent of the flowers however, which is also pretty heady. I should perhaps also mention that rather to the left of the photo above is the river Brent and along its route grows wild mustard in spring and many a bramble bearing luscious fruits in July. Foraging for these is another delight!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Update on \u00a04th August, 2017. Perivale Park, UB6 9BG<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on \u00a020th August, 2017. Perivale Park, UB6 9BG<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on \u00a06th September, 2017. Perivale Park, UB6 9BG<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on 1st October, 2017, Perivale Park, UB6 9GB<\/strong> \"\" <\/a> \"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update on 10th December, 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on 19th December, 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on 8th May, 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Update on \u00a017th August, 2017. Cayton Green Park. UB6 8BJ.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on \u00a011th August, 2017. King George’s Playing Fields, UB1 2QA<\/strong>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Update on \u00a011th August, 2017. Jubilee Park, UB1 2TJ<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a>\"\" <\/a>\"\" <\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bees are having a tough time around the world. Oddly, they are surviving very well in cities. One reason are the wild flower meadows in London and for some summer relief I thought I would tell you the story of the one shown below. 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Today we hear the announcement that London itself\u00a0is set be declared the world\u2019s first National Park City in 2019. What is a park city you may ask?\u00a0It draws on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19522,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=19522","url_meta":{"origin":18657,"position":1},"title":"The dark satanic mills (of the industrial revolution?)","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"March 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Around the time of the 2012 olympic games, the main site for which was Stratford in east London, I heard a fascinating talk about the \"remediation\" of the site from the pollution caused by its industrial chemical heritage. Here I visit another, arguably much more famous and indeed older industrial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/IMG_2723-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14515,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=14515","url_meta":{"origin":18657,"position":2},"title":"A tourist trip around London Overground with a chemical theme.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"August 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Most visitors to London use the famous underground trains\u00a0(the \"tube\") or a\u00a0double-decker bus to see the city (one can also use rivers and canals).\u00a0So I thought, during the tourism month of August, I would show you an alternative overground circumnavigation of the city using the metaphor of benzene. Benzene you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18514,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=18514","url_meta":{"origin":18657,"position":3},"title":"Twenty one years of chemistry-related Java apps: RIP Java?","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"June 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In an earlier post, I lamented the modern difficulties in running old instances of Jmol, an example of an application program written in the Java programming language. When I wrote that, I had quite forgotten a treasure trove of links to old Java that I had collected in 1996-7 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Historical"","block_context":{"text":"Historical","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=565"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/174-1024x561.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17563,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=17563","url_meta":{"origin":18657,"position":4},"title":"A nice example of open data (in London).","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"March 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Living in London, travelling using public transport is often the best way to get around. Before setting out on a journey one checks the status of the network. Doing so today I came across this page:\u00a0our open data from Transport for London.\u00a0 I learnt that by making TFL travel data\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chemical IT"","block_context":{"text":"Chemical IT","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11493,"url":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=11493","url_meta":{"origin":18657,"position":5},"title":"The world ash tree of the computer hardware industry… crystalline silicon from 1854.","author":"Henry Rzepa","date":"October 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The element silicon best represents the digital era of the mid 20th century to the present; without its crystalline form, there would be no computers (or this blog). Although it was first prepared in pure amorphous (powder) form around 1823 by Berzelius, it was not until 1854 that Henri Sainte-Claire\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interesting chemistry"","block_context":{"text":"Interesting chemistry","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"Silicon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Silicon.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"authors":[{"term_id":2661,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"admin","display_name":"Henry Rzepa","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/897b6740f7f599bca7942cdf7d7914af5988937ae0e3869ab09aebb87f26a731?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18657"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19619,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18657\/revisions\/19619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18657"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fppma_author&post=18657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}