IT may have been a wet month, but in terms of temperature it has been very mild.

One indication of just how mild it has been is the fact that there are some wild flowers still in bloom.

On a recent trip to Redstone Marsh nature reserve I encountered three quite large and obvious flowers still in bloom.

The first was hogweed, a common hedgerow and wet meadow plant.

With its large cow parsley-like flower heads it adds a welcome touch of colour at this time of year.

Another was meadow sweet, which in my opinion was quite a strange sight.

One thing I have always associated with the summer months and have often written about, is the wonderful feeling of walking through the distinctive sweet aromas of fields, filled with the lovely creamy white cloud-like flowers of the meadow sweet plant.

Seeing this lone meadow sweet flowering amongst the autumnal leaf fall and dead heads of flowers made me feel quite melancholy.

Returning from my trip, the shock of spotting this summer flower so far into autumn prompted me to investigate what the normal flowering period is for this plant.

I discovered the latest a wildflower identification book you would expect to find meadow sweet in bloom is September.

The last bloom I encountered was not such a surprise and was in flower in abundance, transforming this one area of Redstone into a blaze of blooms.

It was the Michaelmas daisy, which gets its name from flowering late in the year, around the time of the old English festival of Michaelmas, which celebrates the good deeds of St Michael on September 29. The Michaelmas daisy is not a true native plant, but a plant which was initially cultivated for gardens.

Its native home being the North America prairies, the Michaelmas daisy was brought to England in the early 1700s.

A few different sub species were brought into England, which naturally hybridised in English gardens.

Some of the hybrids also found that they were more than able to survive and thrive out in the natural world away from the tender care of the gardener.

Hence, Michaelmas daises spread to many wayside places where unlike many other garden escapees, such as the dreaded Himalayan balsam or Japanese knotweed, they have blended into our native wildlife without causing troubles for our wildlife.

As well as brightening up our autumn scenery, Michaelmas daisies provide a much welcome boost of nectar for some of our native insects that are still active into the autumn.