In praise of dumped soil

Back in June 2010 I was walking along the banks of the River Mole, heading towards the Young Street Car Park from Mickleham. A series of fields between the river and railway line were usually left as grass, but on this occasion piles of farmyard waste had been dumped across them, transforming the normal green monoculture into an altogether stranger terrain. But what was most striking about this unexpected scene was the presence of a disturbing and exotic flower growing from the mounds - Henbane (pictured above and directly below). Like mini-Trifids they stood upright from the mud and mulch, the serrated and hairy leaves topped off by cream flowers, large lobed and netted with an intricate maroon-brown scribbling, at their centre a pool of dried blood. They exuded an other-worldliness. It was a species that I had longed to see but the erratic nature of their appearance had ensured that it had eluded me. Finally, thanks to the farmer's dumped soil I had connected!

Dumped soil. Doesn't sound that inspiring does it? But within it lurks gold - botanical gold. You see, you just do not know what plant seeds are contained within it, where the soil has come from and what will pop up if the soil is left long enough - which it normally is. 

My first exposure to such delights was on the old abandoned playing fields at Priest Hill (Ewell, Surrey). Over the years a lot of tipping had taken place, a mixture of soil, rubble, and hard core. I used to wander across these wastes mainly birdwatching, trying to seek out the odd migrant chat that would sit sentinel on the tops of such piles. When I first dipped my toe into botanical waters this was a place that I would visit, knowing that a fine array of flowers were normally on show - it was then that I realised that such situations would throw up a heady mix of species, mostly of garden provenance - various bluebells, flowering current, perennial cornflower, borage and much more besides - and that these places offered the exotic amongst the expected early colonising wild species.

In May 2007 I really did hit 'dumped soil' gold. An area of fallow land on the edge of Walton Downs (by the access road to Thirty Acre Barn) was being levelled to create a horse gallop. The imported soil being used in their construction had been left on site in great mounds, higher than myself and, most importantly, absolutely bursting in colour with exotica! My star find was Surrey's first record of naturalised Greater Honeywort (Cerinthe major, above and below) alongside such gems as Milk Thistle, Caper Spurge, Oriental Poppy and Rosy Garlic to name just a few. It was as if there had been an explosion in a garden centre, an emptying of a nurseryman's greenhouse, a flower catalogue come to life. It was exhilarating.

So, whenever I come across piles of soil and/or rubble, my attention is won. I make a note to return later in the year to see if that special something will pop up. More often than not it does. Epsom Downs is a prime target for the illegal parking of caravans and trailers over the period of the early-summer Derby race meeting, which the council have started to combat by leaving - you've guessed it - piles of soil as a barrier against vehicle trespass. Last year these mounds were the birthing place of tens of Thorn-apple plants (bottom two pictures). Recently some more extensive earth works have appeared in roughly the same area. Am I going to be keeping an eye on them? What do you think?