July

By Peter Conway

One dreams of July during the colder months, but the reality is usually a little more ambiguous. The month generally has a mix of hot sunny high summer weather, and cool grey skies with heavy rain.

The old Flanders and Swan tag sums things up pretty well: “In July the sun is hot: is it shining? No, it’s not!” Or as Jane Austen perceptively puts it in one of her letters (no 86): “July begins unpleasantly with us, cold and showery, but it is often a baddish month.”

WEATHER

We expect July to be hot, and indeed if there is going to be a heatwave in the summer, this is the month it happens. But July is also often surprisingly cool, cloudy and showery. It is in fact statistically the third wettest month in London, behind November and August, and equal with October. (Thunderstorms help this total: July is a much drier month on the south coast).

The reason for this contrasting weather is the “Azores High”, a large area of high pressure that drifts up from the Atlantic and brings hot sunshine. If the high gets established, we get a heatwave. If it is pushed out, we go back to westerly lows. The strength and persistence of the Azores High – or the Atlantic jetstream that keeps it out - determines how nice a July we have.

Years when July was hot and sunny include 2003, a famously hot and dry spring and summer, and 2006, the hottest July on record. In the latter year, there were successive waves of heat building to an intensely sticky climax with temperatures of 37 degrees. Grey showery weather tried to break through from the 5th to the 10th, but there were no more than a few minor showers of rain. The grass, already parched by a dry June, shrivelled completely, and even trees and shrubs started to wilt. Everyone started to worry seriously about global warming.

Contrast that with July 2007, which was dominated by a succession of Atlantic fronts, continuing a pattern that had begun in May. 20 July 2007 saw torrential rain that caused heavy flooding in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, dominating the national news. However, it was not such a terrible month in the south east. All four weekends in the month were sunny, and there was good amounts of sun on many other days. And just when everyone was convinced we would not have any hot weather that summer at all, the weather relented on 28 July, with high pressure setting in for the next two weeks, and temperatures climbing up as high as 30 degrees.

July 2009 was similar - not producing any major flooding, but equally relentless in its changeable weather. After a heatwave in late June, where temperatures reached as much as 32 degrees for more than a week, lows set in on the 3rd, and remained fairly static over the north of the country for the rest of the month. There were at times strong winds across the south, but it was neither particularly cold (20-24 degrees many days) or particularly wet, with rain falling in heavy showers, and good sunny intervals in between. Three Saturdays and one Sunday were broadly sunny.

In other years, July sees a mix of the two types of weather. For example, in 2005 the month started and ended on a wet note, but had a very hot second week, and 2004 and 2008 started very changeable and showery, but both saw a heatwave in the last week to ten days

Needless to say after three days of either type of weather, everyone forgets the other ever existed. When the weather is grey, the complaint is that that we are having no summer at all this year, and the newspapers have gleeful stories about UK holidaymakers caught in the downpours. When the sun shines, the tabloids trumpet that it is hotter than Rome, Morocco or Acapulco.

Even on cool days in July, one rarely needs a second layer: you can often get away with short sleeved shirts even after dark. 27 July 2005, for example, a day of heavy rain, was declared “the coldest July day in London for 25 years”. But even so, a waterproof on top of a short sleeved shirt was still more than adequate right into the evening. Meanwhile, during heatwaves nighttime temperatures can be really oppressive – generally anything above 17 degrees produces this effect, while 20 degrees feels very sticky.

July starts with sunset at 9.20pm, its maximum extent, and for the first ten days or so of the month, the dusk also seems to get no earlier, as if the long evenings will last forever. Towards the end of the month one starts to notice the shortening days ever so slightly, however. Imperceptibly official lighting up times have crept back 9.20pm to 8.50pm. For the moment, you only notice this because it is pitch black at 9.30 pm, whereas a few weeks ago it there was light in the sky until after 10pm, however. Early risers will also notice that the sun comes up at 5.20am by the end of the month, as opposed to 4.50am at the beginning of it.

From mid month, the sea is at last warm enough to swim in (though more enthusiastic swimmers have been doing so since late June). One often rushes to the coast on a hot sunny day to find the weather there cool and breezy, or even overcast, however.

NATURE NOTES

• Downland flowers are at their best early in the month
• Birdsong abruptly ceases, with only the odd finch chirping away
• Subtle signs of autumn in the second half of the month: berries and seeds ripening; crops being harvested

For pictures of the flowers mentioned here, see the photos to the right of this page. Put your cursor over any photo to see its caption. Plenty more photos are available on Flickr: simply click on any photo to see them: this also gives you a larger view of the photo. In addtion Wikipedia has photos and more information on many plants

There are still plenty of wild flowers to be found in July, but they tend to be found in specific locations – for example, on verges, waste ground, or downland.

The downs bloom

The first part of the month is the best time for downland flowers and other flowers of short grassland. Providing there has been enough rain, favoured slopes can seem like a garden, with literally dozens of different species within a single square metre.

For example, you can see herbs such as majoram and thyme, both of which are at their best mid month, and basil, which appears in the second half of the month. White hedge bedstraw and yellow ladies bedstraw (upper photo) also add frizzy splashes of colour (the former thining from mid month onward, the latter towards its end). A few orchids – for example the pyramid orchid – also survive into July.

If you see a flower on the downs that looks like a dandelion, only with squared ends to the petals, then it is most likely a hawkbit, hawksbeard or catsear. Great numbers of flowers from this confusing family can be found on the downs and grass verges in July. Catsear can be identified by a greenish underside to its petals and tiny scale-like growths near the top of the stem, while lesser hawkbit grows only one flower per stalk and has a greyish-purple underside to the petals. A reddish underside to the petals could be autumn hawkbit (the most common hawkbit, which also has tiny scales near the top of the stem), but if the stem is hairy rough hawkbit is possible. Lastly, a reddish underside to the petals with more than one flower per stalk could be smooth hawksbeard, another very common flower. Others of this family can be found on wasteground (see below).

Other splashes of yellow come from birdsfoot trefoil, meadow vetchling, ribbed or golden melilot, and the ethereal spikes of agrimony (which fade later in the month). If you see a larger spike of yellow flowers, it is probably mullein. Mignonette, and its taller, leafier look-alike weld also flourish, and you can also see the wonderful purples of tufted vetch till late in the month. Some yellow rattle remains too, though most of this has gone over early in the month, leaving the dry seed pods which give its name.

By the sea, as well as on some downland and grassland inland, this is the peak time for wild carrot, one of the cow parsley, which is found especially on coasts (eg on Seaford Head), but also inland (the coastal one is in fact a slightly different species). It can look very similar to another downland bloom of this family – burnet saxifrage. Both have only the tiniest feathers of leaves on their stalks, but the carrot has forked tassles (bracts to give them the technical terms) under their flowerheads, and its blooms curl into a ball when they go over. Others of this family in July include spreading hedge parsley, and the very common yarrow.

Clover (both white and red) also survives in grassland into July, though it is more faded and less prominent than in June. Looking closer in the grass and you can see restharrow – a delicate pink pea variant that was nevertheless strong enough to stop a harrow, hence its name, the tubes of self-heal, and the pink trumpets of field bindweed.

On an even smaller scale, there are tiny flowers such as eyebright in the grass and the oddly named squinacywort dotted around the grass, as well as the tiny yellow globes of black meddick, minature pink clumps of centaury, and cranesbills – tiny pink wild geraniums with a distinctive palm-like leaf (herb robert is another member of this family).

More dramatic flowers to be seen on downland include viper's burgloss, which produces great blue spikes, and the golden flowers of St John’s Wort, from which the popular depression cure comes. Both tend to fade by mid month, though some can be found later. As the month progresses, knapweed, with its purple thistle-like flower also comes out (as do other thistles in general, if they are allowed to). Also towards the end of July one sees harebells, bellflowers of various types (such as clustered bellflower), and the pretty blue globes of round-headed rampion.

At the same time, the heather-like red bartsia adds a splash of purple to some grassy areas, as does heather on heathland. A common plant of grazed grassland heath is also wood sage, which puts up spikes of yellowish flowers this month. Rarer grasslands flowers include the red heads of betony, the delicate white spokes of vervain, and the larger yellow spikes of dotted loosestrife, while recently disturbed ground can produce the wonderful pink-spiked goat’s rue.

If July is reasonably wet – or in favoured well-watered spots - many of these flowers can last well into August, as happened in 2007. In a drier July, as in 2008 (when the second half was drier at least), many of the downland flowers have faded by the month’s end, though ragwort, knapweed and hawksbeards tend to bloom on regardless.

Riotous wasteground

Another great place to see flowers in July is on wasteground, the sides of railways, and odd corners of arable fields. The flowers that put on the best display are often those that are regarded as the greatest pests by farmers, gardeners and landowners. Pride of place, perhaps, goes to ragwort – poisonous to horses, but a lovely golden flower that grows in large swathes. It appears by railway lines much earlier in the year, but in July spreads more generally, and is at its best in mid month.

Another July classic is rosebay willowherb (lower photo) – a flower that was rare until the second world war when it suddenly appeared all over bombsites. Its dramatic pink spikes of flowers make a bold impression on the July landscape, though they are fading by the month’s end. The less showy great willowherb lasts a bit longer.

Showing that not all invasive foreign species have to be unwelcome, budleia also flowers in July. This bushy plant, a native of stony deserts in northern China, finds odd bits of urban dereliction and the sides of railway lines the perfect habitat, and produces enormous purple spikes that are beloved of butterflies and bees. Another common railway line flower is evening primrose with its tall stems of large yellow flowers, though it fades as the month goes on.

A much more troublesome invader is Japanese knotweed, an aggressive climber that covers hedges and wasteground, but which also produces huge numbers of lovely white-tassled blooms in July. It complements our own homegrown garden nuisance, large bindweed, whose enormous white trumpet flowers are nevertheless very fetching and very ubiquitous in July.

There is an enormous list of other flowers that seem to like odd stony bits of wayside in July. One that is very common is mallow, which also comes in a delicate pink variety called musk mallow. Both flowers are related to holyhocks, a garden plant producing tall spikes of purple or pink flowers, which can also be found in semi-wild situations in July. You may also be lucky enough to see the wonderful blue flowers of chicory.

Also very common are rough hawksbeard and other hawkweeds and hawkbits (they are a large and confusing family) – essentially all coarse looking dandelion-type plants. Later in the month the very nobbly-looking bristly ox-tongue joins them. Keen botanists can also have fun identifying a range of similar plants with vaguely dandelion-like flowers, including wall lettuce and nipplewort, as well as cress/cabbage family plants such as hedge mustard.

In softer, pathside verges, hogweed continues to be found throughout July. Though many of these large umbellifers (ie cow parsley-like plants) go over in late June, some survive in verges. Other relatives can also be found, including the quite similar greater burnet saxifrage, which likes wood edges, the delicate hedge parsley, and angelica. If you see a yellow version of this plant, it is likely wild parsnip, and this is the month you can also find fennel, its feathery leaves smelling strongly of aniseed when rubbed.

Other verge flowers of July include hemp agrimony with its fuzzy pink heads, and goldenrod (properly Canadian goldenrod, there being a different native plant of the same name), whose tassles of flowers are exactly described by its name. Mugwort, an untidy metallic green weed with dun-coloured flowers, is also ubiquitous, and late in the month dock produces striking red spikes of flowers. Early in the month, hedge woundwort – which looks somewhat nettle-like, but has red flowers – and the unfortunately named black horehound (which has rings of pink flowers) also adorn verges. Look out too for tansy and nettle-leaved bellflowers.

You might also be lucky enough to see the bushy meadow cranesbill, whose large blue flowers make it look like a garden escapee. The same goes for spiked speedwell, a tall purple-flowered plant, not to be confused with purple loosestrife (see By the Waterside below). While not strictly a wild flower, lavender continues in gardens all month, fading towards its end. In the last days of July, the beautiful common toadflax starts to appear, as does the orange daisy-like common fleabane.

Burdock – the plant that produces the burrs that stick to your clothing in autumn – produces a sort of red flower mid month, and thistles and teazle also bloom, though you need to be looking closely to notice the latter’s flowers. In shadier spots and woodland, enchanter’s nightshade, which puts out spikes of tiny white flowers with dainty seedpods, is common too. Other woodland verge plants include yellow pimpernel and creeping jenny

This is also a good month for plants that climb or sprawl across hedgerows. You can see the large pink flowers of everlasting sweet pea, and throughout the month honeysuckle flowers (seemingly in stages rather than making a big splash all at once). Early in July white bryony produces its tiny flowers, and towards the end of the month you can see green berries ripening to red on black bryony (the only native member of the yam family: it has distinctive heart-shaped leaves). Also at this time white flowers start to appear on the very common climber traveller's joy, and you can see the green and later red berries of woody nightshade. You also can’t miss the large incongruous orange-berried seed heads of cuckoo pint, which started its growing season all the way back in January.

By the waterside

Near ditches early in the month near ditches you can see, the white frizzy flowers of meadowsweet (it fades mid month), and throughout the month you get the wonderful spikes of purple loosestrife. The same goes for Himalayan balsam, another invasive pest that is nevertheless very beautiful to look at.

This is also the time for wild mints that like to grow by water, and July is the month when bullrushes and reeds are grown to their full extent. Stagnant water can become green with pondweed, but more prettily it is a good month for water lily flowers.

By the sea in rocky places look out for rock samphire, stonecrops, and sea beet, while in saltmarsh you get purple sea lavender and the white ditander.

In arable fields

July sees wheat come to full ripeness, and late in the month one sees combine harvesters starting to cut it. For the farmer this is a delicate decision – leaving the crop longer helps it to dry, but leave it too long and a summer downpour could ruin everything. One depressing sight is the brown wastes of dried up oilseed rape, which in May were such a riot of yellow.

Most poppies have gone over, but some can survive well into July. Traditionally this was also the month for wonderful blue cornflowers and pink corncockles, but if you see them these days they are in a nature reserve and usually deliberately planted. On field edges you can see large patches of the daisy-like scentless mayweed, and relatives such as corn chamomile, however. Look even closer and one can find fumitory, field madder, and pineapple weed (a common but often overlooked field margin flower)

Berries, nuts and fruits

This is the height of the strawberry and raspberry seasons, and the shops are full of delicious English varieties. You can actually find wild raspberry bushes growing in the countryside sometimes, but it is easy to miss them as to a casual eye the red berries look like unripe blackberries.

Some blackberries are also ripe enough to eat by the end of the month, though most are still green. The flowers of the bramble, the plant on which blackberries grow, are still out early in the month and can last a surprisingly long time into it. But at the same time green fruits are already forming on them, often on the same plant

Close inspection reveals fruit on the way on lots of other bushes and trees – pale purple sloes on the blackthorn bushes, clusters of still green and unripe elderberries, hips on rose bushes (which are ripe as early as mid month) and haws on hawthorn bushes, some of which are turning red by the month’s end. You can also see wild plums in the second half of the month, and pears, apples and the wild crab apples are also ripening at this time.

By the third week or so, rowan berries are also ripening in bright orange clusters, and other trees are displaying their fruits or nuts. For example, one can see hazel and beech nut clusters quite early in July, and tiny little acorns on oak trees. Conkers on horse chestnut trees also grow larger, and alder puts out new green cones, as do some pine trees (though alder keeps some of last year’s dried cones too). This is also the time of year when horse chestnuts are affected by the larva of a leaf mining moth, which was first discovered in Wimbledon in 2002 and which causes their leaves to develop spots and shrivel, though in 2009 its effects seemed to be more muted than in previous years.

Other trees are a bit later in the cycle. Limes are still in flower at the start of the month, but soon drop their blooms and develop their tiny green fruits by the middle of July. Quite a lot of these winged fruits seem to end up on the ground, however. Sweet chestnut is also only just finishing its flowering in early July, and mid month the ground (eg to the south side of the Serpentine in Hyde Park) is covered with their long tassled blooms.

Among bushes, the wayfaring tree puts out red berries mid month, and while the flowers of privet (both garden and wild variets) fade by mid month, some continue a bit later. Towards the end of the month you can see snowberries, and ivy puts out flower buds (it flowers in autumn and puts its berries out in winter)

If all this reminds one of the approach of autumn by the month’s end, so does the sight of dead leaves on the ground. Trees shed a few of these if July is dry or windy, but don’t need to in a wet summer like 2004.

Birds fall silent

One of the most striking things about July is that birdsong suddenly stops, presumably because breeding has come to an end (or maybe because they are rearing young and don’t want to advertise the position of their nests?). After the frantic chirping of May and June, the change is quite remarkable.

The effect is noticeable even early in the first week or ten days of the month, when one can still sometimes hear chaffinches and chiffchaffs, and maybe the odd wren or dunnock (or blackcap?). For about a week more, blackbirds seem to be the dominant bird singing in the countryside, along with the occasional thrush, especially towards dusk, but by mid month these have fallen silent too.

All is not complete silence, of course. Near houses and pubs, sparrows chirp away as they do all year, and perhaps because other birds are silent the wheezing and trilling of greenfinches suddenly sounds quite prominent. The tinkling of goldfinches is also a quintessential summer sound, and the unmusical chatter of magpies also continues. You can also sometimes hear larks over grassy hills, and in scrubbier downland locations you can also hear meadow pippets and yellowhammers. The latter have a very characteristic song of a run of seven rapid notes and then a long wheeze (likened to “A little bit of bread and some CHEESE”) - but they don’t always do the cheese bit. You can also see the “hweet hweet, chink, chink” call of the chaffinch (not to be confused with the song it makes earlier in the year).

The best bird show in July, however, is the sight of house martins wheeling overhead in the late afternoon, diving and swooping to catch insects, and squeaking to each other, seemingly in pure delight. It nearly always does seem to be house martins one sees, not the similar swallows or swifts. House martins can be easily identified not only by their stubbier wings (unlike a swift) or short tail (unlike a swallow), but from their white bellies and the fact that they come to rest on a fence or a telephone wire from time to time, chattering sociably: swifts and swallows, by contrast, are nearly always on the wing.

Butterflies and other insects

Wherever there are flowers, butterflies abound in July. Watch out for five-spot burnet throughout the month, too. These striking black moths with red spots fly by day and look too vibrant to be real, especially when they sit on brightly coloured flowers such as ragwort or field scabious (both of which they seem to like).

Other insects of all kinds are also in evidence, including honey bees, bumble bees and flies, the latter being attracted by the moisture of your picnic in years when the rest of the countryside has dried out. This is the month when wasps seem to start to become a nuisance too.

When you sit down after a walk or a cycle on a hot day, there can be a column of midges circling over your sweaty head, and this is the month you may be beset by a plague of flying ants (they are off to found new colonies, apparently). Meanwhile, by rivers and ponds one sees dragonflies and damselflies.

© Peter Conway 2006 - updated 2007, 2008, 2009 • All Rights Reserved • From his South East of England Almanac