ivy

Lammas 2026

~ Ashley ~ 24 Comments 


Full of vigour,
In garden and field,
Sweet ivy.

Sweet ivy,
Forever weaving,
Rarely enclosed.

Already it’s August and Lammas is upon us; a time when we celebrate the summer and the gathering in of the harvest.  There’s work to be done as the wheel of the year turns towards the Autumn Equinox and the darker days of winter.

Ivy, Gort in Irish, is the 12th letter (G) in the Ogham Tree Year.  As Yuri Leitch says in his book The Ogham Grove, Ivy is an evergreen and is seen symbolically, as immortal; of the spirit world.

Ivy, Hedera helix, is not actually a tree, but a climber belonging to the Aralia family, Araliaceae.  A slow grower it can live for hundreds of years.  Its fruits are nutritious to birds like blackbirds and thrushes but they are poisonous to humans if ingested: the berries contain Triterpenoid Saponins and Oxalate Crystals.  The leaves were collected as fodder for livestock from ancient times up until the 16th century.

In ancient Egypt, Ivy was dedicated to Osiris, the lord of vegetation.  Along with the vine, it was concocted to use in ceremonies to honour the Greek vegetation god Dionysos, called Bacchus by the Romans.

A tough wood, it has been used to make tool handles.

 

Ashley

Books I’ve used as references:

The Ogham Grove by Yuri Leitch ISBN 9781517653637

The Spirit of Trees by Fred Hageneder ISBN 0-86315-557-X

Mid Autumn

~ Ashley ~ 43 Comments

Today it is overcast, grey, and now the rain has arrived; a sign of the weather to come: dull and drab!  However, yesterday, around midday, the sun shone and it was warm.  The ivy flowers, which have been closed since they appeared a few weeks ago, suddenly were open.  Open for business!

ivy flowers open

Warm sunshine,
Bright at the top of the hedge --
Movement there!

Butterflies and bees feeding there,
On the blooming ivy flowers --
A true sign of autumn.

Ivy!  Such a maligned plant in a garden, and yet it is so important for our pollinators!  

I can’t resist adding this last photo of 3 Small Tortoiseshell butterflies (Aglais urticae) on one of our dwarf Buddleia (Buzz Velvet Red).

small tortoishell x 3 on buddleia

Not long now until the Autumn Equinox!