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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

I always get a real thrill when I find the telltale marks of the leafcutter bee on the leaves of my roses and wisteria. Sometimes I catch them in action, cutting out a circle of leaf, or flying around carrying it. It doesn't bother me to find plants

, in Bethnal Green. Cars, buses and lorries roared past, a city squirrel buried its head in an empty packet of crisps, and I stood in a tiny thicket of hawthorn and dog rose thinking “Is that… a goldcrest?”It reminded me of the recent news that Britain’s rarest

once watched a great tit dive into a clump of forget-me-not to retrieve a fat caterpillar. I also grow native shrubs such as holly, guelder rose and dog rose. A native hedge can also help moths – a mix of species including hawthorn, hazel, dog rose

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

or planting a shrub or tree, now’s the time to do it.There’s a small selection of fruiting plants in my garden, namely holly, guelder rose (Viburnum opulus), dog rose  (Rosa glauca) and ivy. All were planted as bare-root shrubs last autumn, except the ivy

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.

is there for a gardener than the reward of having wildlife use the habitat created for them? Two pairs of blackbirds regularly dart about my lawn feeding, chasing and protecting their territory. I'm not sure where their boundaries lie or whether they're happy

, 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