I’m a messy gardener, partly because I like to see what plants do. At this time of year, my reward is spectacular structures whose job is to offer seed, broadcast in the breeze or neatly packaged for creatures to take. The poppies stand mediaeval, all rust and twirl, windows long … Read More
Holly and Ivy in September… that seems wrong in a “Surely we’re not talking about Christmas yet?” sort of way – but this week’s dispatch is all about the wildlife. Just as the garden has that look that an old college friend describes as “having had one party too many”, it … Read More
I spend a lot of time apologising to spiders at this time of year, their carefully-spun webs across the garden wrecked by one galumphing human. This week, I got to appreciate some of their handiwork without breaking it – two lavender seed heads stitched together, here, with a passing hoverfly. The … Read More
Technically, this is the start of Autumn. But Summer is doing its curtain call. The sound of bees led me to the verbena, an ordinary fly there too, zinging with iridescence in the sunshine. The cucamelon that I planted more on a whim than in expectation of actual fruit is … Read More