Search - Articles

That warm Saturday (April 26th) brought out the first butterflies of the year: holly blue, small tortoiseshell and speckled wood. They're all common garden species, but I always get a thrill when I see any of them.The female holly blue

back bundles of branches that I then stick in the ground around the borders. Initially, the place appears to be colonised by enormous nesting birds, but this framework will soon be covered with plants which will, like matrons in whalebone girdles

, hordes of them. Now this is a puzzle. I hardly ever see sparrows in London. Admittedly there is a small gang of about a dozen in the block of back gardens in my East Dulwich street. I've come to pay them very close attention because I know sparrows

remove healthy trees" was their initial answer.The environmental and wildlife grounds for getting rid of it were overwhelming. The tree was not large enough to be of much benefit to nesting birds. Leyland cypress is a foodplant for next-to no