Search - Articles

Nettles have a bad reputation among gardeners. Although they sting and are invasive if left unchecked, there are numerous ways they can be put to positive use in both your garden and kitchen. Learn more, below.Nettles are a magnet for beneficial

It's worth getting out into the garden even when the weather is so cold. I find I've been missing out for the past few weeks; there's a plant doing its own thing while everything around it is dull and dormant - the hellebore. The oriental hellebore

Several foxes, or the same one several times, have trotted up through the garden during the last week. As I sit tapping on the laptop on the kitchen table I get a good view out through the French windows, but I'm all but invisible to them

into the recycling bin (hopefully your local authority does collect and recycle a good range of materials), but I'm sure there are still a few gardeners out there who could benefit from doing more.For instance, all cardboard rolls, tubes or egg boxes make great

While the growling frogs in my mum's shallow pond have gone quiet (“and who can blame them, the pond completely froze over last week”, observed my mother), a pair of robins has been busy in the garden of my mother-in-law. Despite the bad weather

If only our gardens could really look like those at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Plunge pools and outdoor kitchen areas aside, I don't think I have a hope of achieving the 'Chelsea look'. My garden is far too scruffy, most of my plants have been

The orb webs of the garden spider, Araneus diadematus are much in evidence as the nights get cooler, especially in the morning when their dew- or rain-covered tracery is revealed all over the bushes.It's fascinating to watch them being created first

I used to see foxes all the time. Whenever I looked out of the window there was almost certainly one sniffing about in the garden or strolling nonchalantly down the street. Winter nights were alive with the unearthly yelps and screams of the males

We have a tiny patch of long grass in our garden, less than a couple of square metres. It's mostly the exceedingly common Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus) and false oat (Arrhenatherum elatius). Nevertheless, it's attracting several butterflies

I'm spluttering with indignation.In the dozen or so years that we've gardened here, I've boasted that we've been almost completely free of mammalian vermin: a rabbit emerged once but our two (very efficient) Tibetan terriers soon resolved