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We've had to cut down most of the Clematis montana. It had already done some damage to the featheredge and was threatening to bring down the entire fence. Oh well. It was a fast grower when we first planted it and has provided us with a huge drift

worked on.Some people are very precious about trees. This is because the tree has become one of the green super-icons of the environmental movement. Very simply — planting trees is good, cutting down trees is bad. Except it’s not that simple

Last weekend, for the benefit of wildlife and nature conservation in south-east London, I cut down a tree. Despite their iconic status and green credentials, it is often necessary to cut down trees, and this one had plenty of reasons to go. First

trying to smother for the last two years. Like the vine mentioned in Adam's blog, it's a Vitis coignetiae, or crimson glory vine. The cultivar in our garden is 'Claret Cloak', and beautiful though it is, it's gone too far and needs cutting back. The tree

the weather here in London.The garden is still looking remarkably green, even after we cut down the now wilting and blackened dahlias. In fact we already have a perfect bird-feeder growing out there - the apple tree. And the bird that best takes advantage

completely forgotten about them when they arrived last week. Roses do very well in London, and so too do the insects that feed on them.Apart from the leafcutter bees, which cut out those beautiful semicircles, the insects I most associate with roses

the mainland European form, orange spotted rather than the yellow speckled ones we get in Britain, and was that a swallowtail fluttering down the road?Each afternoon, as we sat in the garden of the gite, we were visited by hummingbird hawkmoths

Dulwich, but that lead seems to be a red herring, and Saprosites natalensis is sometimes found making small chewed burrows under cut logs or pieces of garden timber.When this supposedly South African species was found in West London it took quite a time

It’s life and death out there on the ivy at the moment. The far corner of our garden is a sheltered sun-trap, and the fence is now smothered in ivy flowers. The air is thick with the heavy scent of the blossoms, and the lazy buzzing of insects