Search - Articles

I'm not one for manicured lawns. I think lawn weeds are pretty. I'd really like clumps of bird's foot trefoil, dandelions, daisies, creeping buttercup and self-heal growing among the grass in my garden. In fact, I've just planted some clover

grow for the sole purpose of attracting the speckled wood, which breeds in long grass.When the news broke that sales of artificial grass are soaring, it struck me that a fake lawn might have been a better option for my small patch (roughly 4m²). I

imported topsoil, then tried (and failed) to sow a lawn from seed.I watched the evolution of the plot from courtyard to garden as more and more creatures visited it - blue tits and great tits, a robin, blackbird, bumblebees, butterflies, moths, slugs

. She's not sure where in the shed they are nesting, but robins are known for choosing odd places such as car engines and coat pockets. Perhaps they've built the nest in the lawn mower? Wouldn't that be a nice excuse not to mow the lawn?At first, both

, money-saving solution to the perennial problems of where to park and whose turn it is to mow the lawn.While one paved driveway in a tree-lined street of lush gardens will not have any disastrous effects (apart from looking awful), the consequences

provided me with a couple of salads. There are also some salad crops growing in my lawn, including a radish and various lettuce varieties. I don't know how they got there, but they have so far avoided the attentions of the snails, so they can stay. Who

Garden Birdwatch.Birds will only visit gardens where they feel safe. The ideal bird-friendly garden has a mixture of trees and shrubs for birds to shelter in, a lawn from which ground-feeding birds can forage for ants and worms, and a wild, grassy area

-flowered dahlias, no matter how good they look in our borders. Bees like clover, dead nettle, bird's foot trefoil and thistles. I like most 'weeds' and am looking forward to my new lawn being colonised by trefoil and dandelions. I'm growing teasel, red clover

weeding every year (I'm sure she does it deliberately so she can take time off work to watch Wimbledon). Last week she sliced her thumb open deadheading lavender.It's any wonder we go out into our gardens at all, with the dangers of lawn mowing, pruning

I don’t think my garden could look any worse. The borders I left to rot into themselves have tumbled all over the lawn, the patio is covered in pigeon poo, and there’s now a temporary cardboard compost bin outside my back door because the real bin