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chestnut leaf miner. The tiny caterpillars, only a few millimetres long, chew away the inside of the leaf, feeding between upper and lower surface, and leaving the pale air-filled void. Each leaf can have up to 50 mines in it. The moth, a massive 7 mm from

to flower and in turn feed the hoverflies .My bug boxes are another example. Small enough to fit almost anywhere, I've attached a couple to my pergola, a place I walk by each day so can keep en eye on things. There are plenty available to buy, but I prefer

, weekly feeding and frequent deadheading do create more work at a time when, to be honest, there are other things I'd rather be doing in the garden. Riding to the rescue have come a growing assortment of succulents - more unusual plants with very few

been chewed.My interest in dead sycamores is in the insects associated with them. There are a whole series of rare beetles that feed on the black soot-like spores of the fungus. The largest is a whopping 4.5 mm long. Next time I pass I'll have to make

to cut everything to the ground and apply a generous mulch to feed the soil. Not being desperate to make extra work for myself (and being of an age when my back can be temperamental - unsurprising if you consider the amount of abuse it had to undergo when

outdoors, feeding on garden rosemary. It was not long before it started turning up all over the place.I first saw it when an old friend of mine spotted one, crushed, on the pavement near Waterloo Station. I went up to have a look and sure enough, there were

.Every soil needs feeding with compost to boost its organic content, and mulching with well-rotted material does just that. Thick bark chips or "pretty" man-made materials like glass, tyres and broken up CDs (yuck â?? who, other would ever use these in a

and sour-tasting berries. This latter is the more famous tree, however, because (as every schoolchild knows) it provides about the only food that a silkworm will tolerate. The grubs feed on the mulberry leaves before wrapping themselves into cocoons made

understands both the art and craft of gardening, and speaks from experience. He's in tune with the environment, loves growing fruit and veg to feed his family, and is always bursting with new ideas he'd love to bring to life in his own garden. Now, of course

entomologists realised that it may not actually be that particular alder-feeding species, but another, apparently unknown species in the same genus attached to plane trees. Last I heard, the likelihood was that it was from the other side of the planet, China