Search - Articles

It rained on Sunday, so what better way to spend the day than planting roses? Well, I went and played Power Rangers in the bushes in Dulwich Park with 3-year-old, while my partner did the planting. She'd ordered them at Chelsea, and we'd almost

We have a rambler rose just outside the back door, 'Félicité et Perpétue'. No matter how hard I cut it back, it still fights vigorously with the wooden slats of the featheredge fence, tries to smother the garden table and viciously rakes at my

On Saturday I turned over a rose leaf that appeared to be stuck up with a mass of silky threads to reveal a bizarre furry blob - the wingless female of the vapourer moth, Orgyia antiqua. Well, she's not completely wingless, she has tiny vestigial

The fabulous fine weather of Sunday saw me in the garden trimming back a rose bush that was reaching threateningly across the path at head height. Suddenly something other than a branch of thorns caught my eye - a dark flitting creature an inch long

into trouble. Especially as last weekend, I did a bit of, well, tidying in the garden. It was limited, however, to clipping a few stray rose branches that had suddenly shot out at eye height. And I picked up a few windfall apples to see which ones I could

on hawthorn, blackthorn, rowan and plum. Plenty of those in nearby gardens. I let it out of the back door at 10 o'clock at night and it rose up into the darkness, its ghostly colour flickering off into the void.

rose chafer, Cetonia aurata, a veritable living jewel, is met with startled astonishment nowadays, rather than comfortable recognition. I was reminded of this, recently, when I wrote a blog article about the golden chafers of Central America, and Edgar

, because I think these creatures are rather beautiful. The normally grey rough woodlouse (Porcellio scaber) sometimes takes on a lovely rose tone; if it were a plant it would be given its own special cultivar name. And I'm always thrilled to find a

was not matched by my host's fiancée. She was on the phone when I came into the kitchen and her voice rose to an anxious crescendo squeak when she saw what I was carrying.I was told, in no uncertain terms, to get rid of it immediately. An hour later the logs had

bare clipped lawn, a fair amount of old concrete paths, and naked chain-link fence. Now we have several rambling thickets of rose, ivy, clematis and vine, a 'secret' sun-lit patio beyond the pergola (I'm still extremely proud of my construction), a pond