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.

, 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

I've been reminiscing. Putting together a slide show for some school children I came across a batch of photos I'd taken this time 17 years ago. Just before Christmas 1991, I was in Florida for brother-in-law's wedding. Ever seen Steel Magnolias? I

, and certainly there have been some moth-eaten examples limping through South London streets. But now I wonder whether all the recent garden make-overs in my area have seen them off.When we moved here 10 years ago, a pleasing number of neighbouring gardens

its food in Scandinavia runs out and it heads south-west in search of better forage. We have plenty of that round here, for the waxwing is a berry feeder and gardens hereabouts are full of pyracantha, hawthorn, rowan, berberry and rose hips. The place