Buddleia and Bonnet Bees

I usually have quite lot of bees in my bonnet, you probably do too, but sometimes one of those many, many bees escapes and does some buzzing.

What is your High Street like? Have you had a look up recently to see what’s going on on the rooftops and buildings in general? I’m always looking up at buildings and for a long time now it’s more than architecture which is grabbing my attention, it’s another B – b for Buddleia. On our travels around Britain I’ve seen lots of buildings festooned with weeds, so I know it isn’t just a local problem.

The photo below is of one of the very few art deco buildings in Kirkcaldy, it was all newly refurbished recently but some Buddleias have got a grip of it now and they won’t let go without human intervention, they’ll just keep getting bigger, and it’s bound to end up with the building being badly damaged.

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As you can see these chimneys have what look like trees growing out of them.

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I think there are a few different plants growing out of the building above Specsavers.

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Buddleias are the culprits again as well as some sort of creeping plant. There’s no excuse for this mess as someone could easily have opened a window here and grubbed out the offending plants before they got a chance to get a good root hold.

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More Buddleia, this looks big from the ground and I dread to think how big it must be.

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There are some lovely old buildings in Kirkcaldy, relics of a far more prosperous past and it’s a real shame to see them being infested by weeds with absolutely nobody bothering about it. It’s about time that whoever is responsible for it pulls their finger out, and if the buildings are all owned by various private landlords then the council should do the work and send the bill to the building owners.

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A large part of the problem is that there is a derelict site in the High Street where a 1960s building was pulled down some years ago and it is now just a vacant plot. The ground is obviously full of lime leftover from the demolition and the original building materials. That is the perfect growing medium for Buddleias and the building plot has plenty of them growing there, of course they aren’t content to stay there and the seeds end up on the rooftops and buildings nearby. If that vacant site was cleared of Buddleias then the problem would never have got so bad.

I actually cut my own Buddleia down last year because I didn’t want it adding to the problem. I planted it to attract butterflies but there are lots of plants which attract butterflies just as much, and they aren’t invasive and damaging to buildings.

So that’s my bee, going back to my bonnet, settling down to buzz quietly again, except Jack wouldn’t agree with that, he would say I never stop going on about bees in my bonnet. Who me?!