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My garden - like yours - is looking fantastic at the moment. Plants that were just poking from cold ground a couple of months ago are now enormous and luxuriant. Bees buzz, roses overflow and lawns are lush.Rather than just brag, I thought I

available tube. We've got them nesting in an old bathroom overflow pipe and my parents once had them nesting in the metal tubular handle of the lawn mower. The easiest construction is to gather some short (20-30cm) lengths of bamboo cane, bundle them

in the lawn? Not on my watch … squirt. Squirt … out damned blackspot. Caterpillars? No way, Jose … squirt, etc, etc. The default action was to reach for easily accessible and much-advertised chemicals.A couple of decades before that not only did gardeners kill

-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

salvage for the crumble.We don't have the most regimented of gardens, in fact it's a bit wild sometimes. But wildlife is, by definition, wild. As I said in the magazine, it has no time for straight lines, clipped edges, smart displays, or level lawns. We

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

plants (such as peas and beans, clover, vetches and bird's foot trefoil) to provides bees with the best quality pollen and give them the greatest start in life. Mow your lawn less often to encourage white clover and birds’ foot trefoil to grow and provide

across the water surface, and the newts are in full-flow courtship below.Blackbirds and thrushes are working double-time on the lawn and the local woodpigeons seem constantly out of breath, they are so busy.But for me, the highlight of the last few days

garden, and am looking forward to lots more after watching one laying eggs in my lawn last week.)Bats typically roost in caves, tall trees, roofs of houses and barns, but they will choose anywhere they deem suitable. My cousin often has bats roosting