Life – Page 6 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Old man’s beard

The seeds are not released until spring, and all winter long, these white ‘beards’ can be seen in Cotswold hedges, adding a touch of interest in an otherwise rather drab time of year.

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Image 100 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.

These are the seeds of Clematis vitalba or ‘Old Man’s Beard’. This plant grows abundantly in Cotswold hedgerows, tolerating the limey soils in the region. In the summertime it doesn’t stand out, but if you know what to look for you can see its characteristic leaves and its stems winding through hedgerow plants and the lower branches of trees. The flowers are quite insignificant too, unlike the Clematis in garden centres, bred for large and showy flowers.

But wild Clematis comes into its own in the autumn; the seeds are hairy, as you can see, enabling them to blow away in the wind. If they land in a suitable spot they will germinate, put out a shoot with leaves, and try to find some support to climb up. But the seeds are not released until spring, and all winter long, these white ‘beards’ can be seen in Cotswold hedges, adding a touch of interest in an otherwise rather drab time of year.

The colourful garden Clematis cultivars were once propagated by grafting onto the wild seedlings as they were not easy to root as cuttings. But these days cuttings are the norm; with modern rooting hormones and high humidity conditions they root and grow very well indeed.

Favourites

For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:

Anemone, Cloud, Honeybee, Hydrangea, Kiftsgate1, Kiftsgate2, Large White, Mugshot, Nelson, Robin, Rose, Spilhaus, Sunset1, Weston beach

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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Useful? Interesting?

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Groups and group size

As the group size grows, the dynamics change; ten to twenty people will chat together (like the group in the photo), though sometimes there will be more than one conversation going on.

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Image 99 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.

People like to sit in the sun and chat. Social interaction is central to human nature with group sizes anywhere between two and a hundred; more than a hundred becomes a crowd in which there are some people who don’t know one another at all. And the larger the crowd, the more anonymous the experience becomes.

Group dynamics

A group of two or three has the potential to be quite intimate; close friends who trust one another may share things they wouldn’t discuss more widely.

As the group size grows, the dynamics change; ten to twenty people will chat together (like the group in the photo), though sometimes there will be more than one conversation going on. Generally most people will have something to say; the intimacy is lost, but everyone has a chance to join in.

As group size increases beyond twenty, to say thirty or forty, it’s no longer possible for everyone to hear. If it’s an informal gathering, people will break into smaller groups to chat and often there will be a few left out, not engaging with others at all. Or if it’s a more formal gathering a chairperson may manage things and individuals will take turns to make their points.

Sharing food and drink

The people in the photo are eating and drinking together, this is helpful in getting a group to relax. Here, things are completely informal, but in more formal groups of this size or larger it may help to provide tea and coffee, or even a buffet. This relaxes everyone.

Right-sizing

If you are planning a group meeting for a specific purpose it’s beneficial to consider group size and how it affects things. Often we do this automatically, these group dynamics are so familiar that we don’t need to make any special effort to get it right. Sometimes it’s useful to break a big group up into smaller ones, sitting people at tables of six or so to make sure everyone is able to talk and interact while also being part of something bigger (perhaps with a speaker at the front from time to time). This enables a focus/discuss/focus/discuss dynamic which can be very useful.

When: 21st June 2024
Where: Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, England