Carpets of purple viper’s bugloss and corn marigold, both rare arable plants, light up the landscape on a farm near Land’s End, west Cornwall. The display is the result of farmer Adrian Thomas’s participation in a Natural England Higher Level Environment Stewardship Scheme, in which areas of farmland were left fallow and springsown cereal crops managed with low nitrogen inputs and without artificial herbicides and pesticides.

* Country Life Summer Subscriptions Sale – Save £55 a year!

The result is a magnificent and environmentally beneficial display-purple viper’s bugloss is an excellent source of nectar and pollen that’s only found in a few places in the UK.

* Follow Country Life Magazine on Twitter