Your video made me feel a whole lot better! After visiting my 8 top violet helleborine sites in the Chilterns I have seen precisely 6 spikes at 2 of them. Waited all year to see var. rosea after having found 2 plants myself back in 2023, hoping to brighten up the back end of summer, but needless to say no plants where they were last year. Also last season you could see clumps of (presumably very well established) 'normal' purpurata simply by driving through the leafy roads around Monks Risborough etc but absolutely none this year. Why? I have no idea really, since the weather seems to have been similar to last year - a wet cool spring and a reasonably warm but not hot summer. I was expecting a bumper crop of them. Still, that's the wonder of orchids, they keep you guessing, perhaps they're just happy curled up underground with their fungal partners. My only hope is that a few more will appear belatedly over coming weeks - they're supposed to flower earlier in dry summers, so maybe the opposite is also true... Not sure I can go into autumn without seeing a rosea shining out from the gloaming of an ancient beechwood : )
It would seem that violets do best with a damp spring start and then a warm, humid summer. I visited Groton wood and nothing there save for one plant, on a path where I counted 16 the previous year and in Hampshire at Noar hill, only 1 violet, with far less shoots than the past 3 years.
Your video made me feel a whole lot better! After visiting my 8 top violet helleborine sites in the Chilterns I have seen precisely 6 spikes at 2 of them. Waited all year to see var. rosea after having found 2 plants myself back in 2023, hoping to brighten up the back end of summer, but needless to say no plants where they were last year. Also last season you could see clumps of (presumably very well established) 'normal' purpurata simply by driving through the leafy roads around Monks Risborough etc but absolutely none this year. Why? I have no idea really, since the weather seems to have been similar to last year - a wet cool spring and a reasonably warm but not hot summer. I was expecting a bumper crop of them. Still, that's the wonder of orchids, they keep you guessing, perhaps they're just happy curled up underground with their fungal partners. My only hope is that a few more will appear belatedly over coming weeks - they're supposed to flower earlier in dry summers, so maybe the opposite is also true... Not sure I can go into autumn without seeing a rosea shining out from the gloaming of an ancient beechwood : )
I'd like to see any Rosea you find but I fear your chances are very slim indeed !
It would seem that violets do best with a damp spring start and then a warm, humid summer.
I visited Groton wood and nothing there save for one plant, on a path where I counted 16 the previous year and in Hampshire at Noar hill, only 1 violet, with far less shoots than the past 3 years.