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problem: the hazel (unlike many plants) cannot fertilise itself, so needs to find another tree. How to disseminate pollen from one tree to another? Many plants use insects — bees, wasps, moths, butterflies or ants — while others draw on the services

that expired in 2004 (coincidentally the year that I had a garden there). The new festival is near St Albans and is on the site that, eventually, will play host to Butterfly World. The festival runs until September and features gardens built by such illustrious

(apart from a friendly pigeon), and I doubt there will be until I have grown sufficient foliage (and bought the all-important plum tree) for them to hide in. And it’s going to be a butterfly and bumblebee haven – full of single-flowered, nectar rich

There's a park near me. It's a great place to escape the urban sprawl. There, I've spotted eight species of bumblebee (including a winter buff-tailed colony), plus honey, solitary and feather-footed bees. I've also seen butterflies, great spotted

, was a fat, green caterpillar. I've no idea what the caterpillar was; there are so many green caterpillars, and not all of them are the small cabbage white. I grudgingly decided that butterflies and moths are far fewer in number than foxgloves, and a new

couple of weeks had been moth heaven in East Dulwich. During the day the Jersey tigers had competed with the butterflies in colours and numbers and it was almost impossible to walk in the garden, or up the street, without being batted by one on its mad

I've had a great gardening year. It's hard to imagine my garden now as it was a year ago - a building site, with a huge pile of sand at one end and 200 paving stones and builders' rubble at the other. Then there was an awful lot of mud as we

is, I’m afraid, a minute brown beetle. Saprosites natalensis is a tiny ‘dung’ beetle, just 2.5 mm long. Although its life history is unknown it is unlikely to feed in dung, and probably develops in rotten wood. A similar Australian species, Saprosites

the small golfball-sized embryo nest with its 15-20 cells in a single paper comb. After she has laid her first 15-20 eggs in these, she must forage for caterpillars, flies, aphids and other insects to feed to the grubs that hatch.This is a vulnerable time

species that take advantage of Flying Ants Day, starlings, swifts and sparrows are in serious decline. According to the RSPB, swifts have declined by a third in recent years, house sparrows by almost 60% since 1979 and starlings by almost 75%. One