Wildlife Watching in the Touraine du Sud in June

Wispy lavender blue Bellflowers Campanula spp and deep blue Meadow Clary will be in abundance on roadsides. Meadow Clary is easily as garden worthy in appearance as its fashionable South American Salvia cultivar cousins, but its strict requirement for very chalky soil means that it doesn't transfer well to the garden.

Nettle-leaved Bellflower C. trachelium, one of the less wispy and more robust species.

Drifts of shocking pink Perennial Pea appear in the grass and spires of Foxgloves on the edges of woodland.

Somewhere in between the two, rich purple vetches rise up roadside banks and tumble down ditches.

By early June the scarlet coloured Field Poppies will really be getting underway. It seems to me no wonder that these flowers have been associated with remembrance and rebirth since at least Egyptian times. Their enthusiastic return year after year cheers everyone up.

The average maximum temperature in June is 23C. It is the driest month, at only 46mm average rainfall, delivered on just 7 days of the month. We should get more than 200 hours of sunshine. Here's hoping!