June

By Peter Conway

At the start of June it is still high spring – with big swathes of cheerful flowers and blossom. But as the month progresses, things definitely go to seed: meadows become overgrown, spring blooms die away, the countryside starts to take on a frowsy summer air.

The weather also becomes truly hot for the first time, and is often sticky and sultry – though it can also be wet and rainy (think of the Wimbledon tennis championships). When it is hot, you want to cool off with a swim in the sea, but alas, its waters are generally still icy cold.

WEATHER

The weather in June can be glorious: the sun really starts to pack a punch. One starts to sit in the shade rather than the sun, and you really feel that summer has arrived.

This is the first month in the year when it really can be too hot - the flaming June of popular legend – and temperatures can be as hot as they ever get the whole summer. Humid heat is also a characteristic of the month: it is a rare June when there is not at least one week of sticky weather.

Sometimes, the weather stays mainly sunny for the whole month, usually due to high pressure extending up from the continent or the Azores. 2002, 2003 and 2008 were examples of this, with the month seeing only the odd grey or wet days in these years. In 2006, despite May having been very wet and cool, 3 June saw perfect blue skies, and it remained hot and sunny all month. Temperatures several times reached into the low 30s, night time temperatures were as high as 20 degrees, and there were only a couple of days of rain (one, inevitably, being the first day of the Wimbledon Championships).

2009 also saw June end with ten days of high pressure over Scandinavia, culminating in a week long heatwave when temperatures reached 32 degrees. The month also had two other periods of high pressure, and only about five days of cool showery weather from the 6th to the 11th. In 2008 the sunshine was not unbroken sunshine, and nor did high pressure dominate, but sun and scattered cloud was a pretty frequent pattern: temperatures remained pleasant, in the low to mid 20s.

In other years, June can see quite heavy rain, as the example of the Wimbledon tennis championships prove. They start in the last week of the month, and are either a time of blazing hot sun or incessant stop/start showers interrupting play.

2007 was a famous example of a disappointing June. After a hot and dry April and a cool grey May, it started promisingly with hot sunshine for 2-3 June, the first weekend. The next Saturday, 9 June, was also hot and sticky, and 10 June saw perfect blue skies and hot sunshine. But apart from that coolish westerly weather dominated the whole of the month, with temperatures no higher than 22 degrees. On 13 June rain was added to the mix, when a 15 day drought broke in the south east. By this time, the midlands and the north were seeing floods, and from 22 June onwards heavy rain also came to the south east.

Sometimes June starts one way and ends the other. 2001 was an example of a relatively wet start to the month, followed by hot sunny weather from the third week onwards. In 2004, the pattern reversed: a generally hot and sunny first half gave away to a much more unsettled second half, with one intense wet and windy storm and plenty of heavy showers.

2005 also saw a very mixed first half, with sunshine alternating with disappointingly cool, grey weekend days, with stiff winds. But the difference this year was that there was only one day of rain in the first half – on 15 June. The third weekend was then blazing hot (33 degrees on Sunday 19 June), setting off a week long heatwave, before the weather turned showery for the last four days.

Whatever the weather, people complain about it: if it is grey or wet everyone says we are not having a summer at all this year; and if it is sunny they moan about the heat. Really intense heat – the high 20s or early 30s – rarely lasts for more than a four or five, however, and usually ends in thunderstorms. Meanwhile, even on cool days in June it is not really that cool. Most days one can go out with only a t-shirt on, and even when it is grey and windy one extra layer is sufficient. Night times also tend to be pleasant, with temperatures in the mid teens.

June is the month of the longest days, of course, but they always seem to have come too soon, and there is that pang one gets from realising that the days are already shortening when summer has hardly begun. One always feels in June that one is not really making the best of the long summer evenings, that one is in fact spending far too many of them inside, or at work. And no matter how early you get up, you still feel you should have been up earlier.

Sunset at midsummer (and indeed for much of the month) is 9.20pm, though some kind of afterglow lasts until 10.30pm and beyond, though useful light has gone by about 9.50pm. Dawn is 4.43am at its earliest.

The sea in June tends to still be too cold for swimming, though towards the end of the month temperatures can become bearable, particularly if there has been a heatwave.

NATURE NOTES

• An end to the big displays of spring, but still plenty of wildflower interest
• Downland flowers are at their best late in the month
• The last good month for birdsong

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 addition Wikipedia has photos and more information on many plants.

In early June you still have the striking carpets of flowers and brilliant verdant greens of spring, but by the middle of the month they are giving way to the more ragged, overgrown untidiness of high summer. Grass and leaves no longer seem so fresh and enthusiastic, and things start to go to seed. However, it is actually the time of the year with the biggest variety of wild flowers – you just have to look harder to spot them.

Meadows go to seed

In the early part of June, buttercups can still make reasonably good displays in meadows, but they are on the way out, and few are seen beyond the second week. Ox-eye daisies (lower photo), that characteristic flower of meadow and verge in early June, last a bit longer, with some found in isolated spots till late in the month.

In general, meadow flowers become smothered by tall grasses, which are now all going to seed. In the first half of the month, there is a wavy summery attractiveness to such meadows of sighing grasses, but later all starts to look ragged, with the seeds heads turning brown. Traditionally this was a time when meadows were cut for hay, and one can see this practice continuing on some farms (the hay is used as winter fodder for livestock). June was also the traditional month for poppies, which can be seen from early in the month but are better towards their end: however, these they seem to be found only on isolated organic farms (eg the one near Luddesdown on the Snodland to Sole Street walk).

Even a seemingly uninteresting meadow can have lots of smaller flowers on closer inspection, however. Examples include lesser stitchwort (a diminutive version of the flowers that decorate verges so prettily in April and May), purple tufted vetch, meadow vetchling (both of which can form sizeable clumps), and the delicate purple of common fumitory. This is also a great month for spotting cranesbills (wild geraniums) which vary from tiny intensely purple flowers to the enormous blue flowers of the meadow cranesbill, whch looks like a garden escapee.

In addition, June is the best month for clovers – both white and pink - and the clover-like pink spikes of sanfoin (which grows on the cliffs near Dover, for example). The humble plaintain puts out its equally humble flower. Early in the month, ragged ears of sorrel give meadows a pleasing reddish tinge: by the end of the month they are looking more rust-coloured as they go over. Tiny blue speedwell still survives in some places till well into the month.

If you think you can see a dandelion in June, it is most likely a hawkbit (top photo) or smooth hawksbeard, or one of a bewildering range of hawksbeards, hawkbits and hawkweeds, all of which last through the summer - see July for more details. They can be distinguished from dandelions by the squared off ends to their petals, and various other features.

In the lawns of parks, daisies can still produce thick carpets early in the month if the grass is not cut too often, though they seem to give up the attempt as the month advances.

Verges and wasteground

The lovely blooms of May that line country lanes – the stitchworts and hedge mustards – are no more (though red campion can survive well into the month), but path verges and wasteground nevertheless sport a wonderful variety of flowers in July if you keep your eyes peeled.

Note, for example, the delicate purple-pink spikes of hedge woundwort, and the pink-flowered black horehound (which is much nicer than its name suggests): both have somewhat nettle-like leaves and can be found throughout much of the month. This is also the month of the enormous purple spikes of foxgloves, which go over towards the month’s end.

Cow parsley has gone over in late May, and in place of its dreamy drifts of white flowers there are only brown seed heads. But you might be fooled into thinking some of it is still out, because a range of other similar flowers – from the family known as umbellifers – appear in June. Most like cow parsley is rough chervil: larger and coarser, but much more common is hogweed, which is ubiquitous by the third week, and which also colonises fields. You might also see giant hogweed, a rather terrifying version of the flower that is as big as a small tree, and which is an irritant to skin if touched. Even more deadly is hemlock water dropwort, a very poisonous umbellifer that is very commonly seen flowering in ditches in June.

A less lethal umbellifer, but a massive irritant to gardeners is ground elder, which has elder-like leaves quite different from others in the family, and which can be found on path edges. You can also see angelica, which looks a bit like hogweed, and can be used as cake decoration. Very diffent looking, but with the typical umbellifer flat white flower head is yarrow, which appears at the end of the month and then lasts all summer.

Another confusing family of flowers which is often seen on waysides and field edges in June are the various cabbage and mustard family plants including charlock, hedge mustard, wild radish, wall lettuce and the unfortunately named nipplewort. In similar places, you might also see members of the dandelion-like hawkweed/hawksbeard family, including rough hawksbeard and beaked hawksbeard.

Also very common throughout June is mallow, which forms clumps of attractive pink flowers. Early in the month one can still see crosswort – which has green flowers in spikes that look quite attractive en masse. Woody nightshade (also known as bittersweet) is an attractive flowers whose strange purple flowers can last into June, and which is producing green berries towards its end. In the second half of the month, the striking pink flowers of everlasting sweet pea appear.

By this time, you also see agrimony – a small spike delicately splashed with yellow flowers at the same time, and meadowsweet, which prefers damp spots to grow its drifts of white flowers. The invasive Himalayan balsam, with its masses of pink flowers, appears on the banks of streams at the same time. Towards the very end of the month one can see hollyhocks, garden escapees, and sometimes some rosebay willowherb.

Stinging nettles have reached waist or even neck height in June, and along with other vegetation, can block paths that were perfectly clear earlier in the year. Those other pests to walkers – thistles – can be seen growing throughout the month, their new leaves looking pale and lettuce-like to begin with. A prettier pest, much hated by gardeners, is bindweed. Its huge white trumpets, or small pink ones, cover many a hedge or piece of wasteground from around mid month.

On the edges or arable fields, scentless mayweed (a large daisy) adorns the edges of arable fields. Ragwort, which comes out as early as the start of May on railway lines, reaches cliffs and fields later in June, and by this time the pretty yellow flowers of St John’s wort appear (used to cure depression), along with their large flashy garden relative, rose of sharon can be seen. On railway lines or gravel tracks you can find evening primrose in huge yellow spikes, but one never seems to see them anywhere else.

If you see blue star-shaped flowers trailing down walls in June, they are most likely trailing bellflower. Mexican fleabane (a type of daisy), ivy-leaved toadflax and yellow cordialis also grow out of the most unlikely cranies in stonework. In gardens, lavender appears in about the second week.

On the downs

The one place where you can see quite dramatic displays of wildflowers in June is on downland, but it rather depends on how much rain we have had. The downs have porous chalk soils and suffer particularly in droughts. However, in wet summers, they can be postively ablaze with wildflowers, with the end of June producing the best displays. Many of the flowers here are not exclusive to the downs, incidentally, but are also found on other grassy areas in the south east.

The little yellow flowers of birdsfoot trefoil, tormentil and cinquefoil (like tormentil but with five petals) are perhaps the most common flowers, and you can also spot the yellow globes of black meddick (so named for its fruits, rather than its flowers). Also common are dainty yellow rock roses, as well as cranesbills, field pansies, and horseshoe vetch. You can find the aromatic leaves of wild majoram rowing right from the start of the month, but it only flowers towards the end. The same is true of wild thyme, which makes delicate purple mats.

As the month progresses bedstraws – the white hedge bedstraw and the yellow ladies bedstraw – also become very evident, and vipers burgloss, which starts as a small blue flower, grows into huge spikes. Yellow rattle is already putting out its shy yellow flowers at the start of the month, going over by the month’s end, and you can see spikes of mignonette, or the similar but even taller weld.

June is also a good month to see orchids on the downs, including the common spotted orchid (its name refers to its spotted flowers and stems, not the frequency with which it is seen), and pyramid orchids. Other flowers in no particular order include yellow-wort, with its strange double leaves, dropwort (a kind of downland meadowsweet) and ribbed melliot. As the month goes on you also find restharrow, pretty purple self-heal, and meadow centaury – a tiny little pink flower – and eyebright, an even tinier white flower

Towards the very end of the month, knapweed – a long lasting summer staple – can start to flower, and at this time you can also see the huge yellow spikes of great mullein, and astonishing large blue bellflowers.

By the sea

Mignonette (see above) is particularly common downland sea cliffs right through the month, and in the second half of the months you also see wild carrot – a low umbellifer easily identifiable by the way it curls up into a brown ball once it is over starts to appear on sea cliffs later in the month.

Flowers are best on shingle beaches earlier in the month. You can see striking yellow horned poppies in flower early in June, and find them with their enormous long seeds towards its end. The southern end of Deal beach is alive in early June with ox-eye daisies, red valerian (which also grows out of walls), vipers burgloss, and red hot pokers, which look like a garden escapee, as well as with the leaves (though not yet the flowers) of fennel.

Early in the month, you can also still find the yellow flowers of wild cabbage near the sea, along with sea raddish, which has flowers of the same colour. Other cress and cabbage family plants such as charlock are also to be seen.

On wilder cliffs, you can sometimes see thrift, kidney vetch and sea campion in early June, which more normally one associates with Cornwall: but they are going over by now. More mundane plants of the seaside include rock samphire and sea beet, both of which have green flowers and so are often overlooked. Though by no means confined to the coasts, beaches or cliffs often provide nice environments for stonecrops – tiny yellow or pink flowers that like rocky habitats – to grow.

In the hedgerow

Elderflowers continue to offer splash of white across hedgerows and field margins for the first three weeks or so of June (starting and ending a week later in 2006, but a week early in 2008: elder tends to flower in phases, with some heads out and others going over). Where not clipped back in garden hedges, the humble privet also puts forward white flower heads with an intense sweet aroma from around mid month. Dogwood bushes produce their flowers early in the month.

June is the month for wild roses – they last till about the third week, and cultivated rose gardens (for example in Hyde Park, Regents Park or at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire) are also at their best in the second or third week. Another kind of rose, the bramble, flowers in June, going over around the end of the month, when one can also see the first unripe green blackberries (though in 2006, after a late spring, the blackberry blossom was not at its height until the end of June).

Honeysuckle can flower throughout June, and towards the end of the month so do two other climbers: white bryony, and the invasive (but pretty) Japanese knotweed. Towards the end of the month, budleia can also start to flower.

The large leaved bush that appears in June is burdock, but it does not flower till July. (This plant is better known for producing burrs that stick to your clothing in late summer)

Trees start to fruit

It may be only the start of summer, but some trees and shrubs are already starting to think of autumn. In the third week of June you can see cherries on wild cherry trees, and ash, hornbeam, sycamore and maple have fully formed seeds, ready to fall. Alder spouts green cones, but still keeps some from last season.

The May spikes of flowers on horse chestnuts have given way to tiny green conkers, which at first sit erect on the remains of the flower spikes: as the month goes on and they get bigger, some fall, and the rest start to hang below the branches instead of sitting above them. Sadly in late June the trees also often develop the leaf blight that has so affected them in recent years.

Close inspections shows green haws appearing on hawthorn, and greeny-blue sloes on blackthorn bushes. By the end of the month wild plums and hazelnuts are beginning to form. Rowan berries appear brown, slowly turning to orange.

By contrast, some trees are only just starting to flower. Lime produces its flowers from mid month, and sweet chestnut errupts into enormous long tassles

Birdsong

Birdsong is still fairly strong in June, though perhaps a bit more muted than May. The reason is that more and more birds have now found a mate, and settled down to rearing young.

As might be expected, the birds that start singing earliest in the year tend to stop first – you no longer hear great tits in June, and robins pipe down by the second week or so. Blackbirds remain very prominent the whole month, however: indeed, they seem to be the dominant birdsong in June.

Chaffinches and chiffchaffs also remain quite active, but towards the end of the month one only hears the odd one or two outbursts in a day. The same goes for many other birds – you can hear dunnocks, blackcaps, song thrushes, green woodpeckers and greenfinches but it becomes a rarer event as the month progresses.

Near the sea, stonechats are quite prominent on scrubland, and this kind of open territory also favours yellowhammers and meadow pippets. The most evocative summer birds, however, are larks twittering high in the sky above grassland. You also see, and sometimes hear, house martins enthusiastically swooping and diving for insects. These seem to be the commonest of this class of birds in the south east, though swallows (forked tail) and swifts (swept back wings) can also be seen.

Insects

Larger insects such flies and wasps – start to become annoying in June. If you leave your windows open at night, you end up with a fly or a moth buzzing around inside your house. At dusk, especially early in the month, the air can also be full of tiny insects that get in ones mouth and eyes, or – near water – biting midges. On the plus side, it is another good month for butterflies, and you can see irridescent blue dragonflies and damselflies (the latter with just one set of wings, while dragonflies have two).

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