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Some of my earliest memories are of going to stay with my grandparents in Scotland. Every afternoon my grandfather would wander off to sit on a bench and feed the birds. He had a tin filled with peanuts in his waistcoat pocket, and robins and tits

with daffodils in an almost unquenchable variety of shapes and colours, almost all of them shades of yellow. Given the joys of this or this or this or (almost) any one of the 20,000 available varieties, why choose a forsythia for your spring hit of yellow?It also

of the last flowers.Anyway, I tell you all this not only to entertain you with tales of my day but also to demonstrate the fact that this garden teems with wildlife. Apart from those mentioned we have birds a-go-go, the odd hedgehog and there is a grass snake

wants to point me in the direction of anyone in particular then feel free.Dr Philibert Commerson was a French naturalist born in 1727. He discovered a passion for botany while studying law in Montpelier. It was a great time to be a botanist as Linnaeus

Spot the odd one out from these four: 1) Quincy Jones (Music Producer who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra). 2) Thomas de Quincey (ferociously clever writer and drug addict). 3)Quincy ME (1970s television series starring Jack Klugman

. On Thursday I'm with the twinkling Chris Beardshaw, on Friday with earthy Monty Don and on Saturday and Sunday with gingery Joe Swift. If you're looking for somewhere to go this coming weekend (10-11 May) please come along and say 'hello'.I'm already looking

the young leaves were added to peoples' sandwiches; it supports at least 149 species of insect and the berries feed more than 23 species of bird; hawthorn is pollinated by dung flies and midges attracted to the mildly unpleasant smell and the fact

Do you have an autumn clear-up in your garden? Do you cut down all your herbaceous stuff so that everything is tidy for the winter or do you leave everything until the new year? Most people nowadays leave it until later to give food for small birds

apples and, once we have had a few frosts which tend to soften the fruit, they will provide a good food source for birds.There are five varieties in particular to which I would like to draw your attention. Ladies and gentlemen:The first is Malus 'John

for as long as possible, in order to feed the birds and give the frost something to hold on to, but there comes a time when one has to surrender to weather, nature and decay.As you can see from the picture above, that moment has, I think, arrived. (Just