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was prompted by Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count.From 16-31 July, Butterfly Conservation hopes thousands will spend just 15 minutes counting butterflies in their garden, local park, field, forest or school. This will help the charity monitor

What a spring we're having. Provisional Met Office reports suggest April was the warmest on record. It was also the 11th driest, based on average rainfall across the UK. Scotland's rainfall has been 110% above normal levels, while the South-East has

How hard would it be to design green roofs for cars? Just imagine: you stop off to pick up some groceries, and on returning to your car, you find it's alive with the sight and sound of butterflies and bees tucking into the supply of nectar on its

and moss.I have grand plans for my lawn. It's only tiny, but it will be full of pretty 'weeds', wildflowers and crocus. Butterflies will lay eggs in it, bees will drink nectar from it and I will sunbathe on it.At the moment I can't really describe what I

sited under a hedge and dutifully packed with fallen leaves and hay.Attracting wildlife to your garden can be a bit hit and miss. Bumblebees and butterflies, for example, will happily come to our gardens to forage for food, but often choose to breed

Last week I spotted a speckled wood butterfly sunning itself on one of my plant pots. It was fresh and new looking, like it was drying its wings after emerging from a chrysalis. I was proud to think it might have come from a patch of turf I'd let

Last year I wrote a blog about cuckoo spit, in which I documented the fauna that had appeared in my garden after I had transformed it from a paved courtyard. I celebrated the arrival of butterflies, birds, froghopper nymphs and moths, but was less

it's not legal, but I'm not aware of anyone being prosecuted for it.I attended a wildlife gardening conference recently, where one of the speakers, Jan Miller, author of Gardening for Butterflies, Bees and other benificial insects gave a presentation

tiny) garden.The garden isn't perfect and I've a long way to go, but I've documented my success by the variety of garden visitors I've gained since the transformation: blue tits and great tits, bumblebees, butterflies, moths, slugs, snails and leaf

appeared in my garden soon after I converted it from a paved courtyard last year. It's not large enough and doesn't get enough sun to sustain breeding butterflies (most of which require large swathes of nettles in full sun to lay eggs), so I can munch away