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There's a spider the size of a gardening glove in my compost bin. It obviously gets a good living in there, feeding on the flies, woodlice, beetles and earwigs, the remains of which can be vaguely guessed in its untidy sheet of a web. I wouldn

of wildlife. The back garden is just 30 square metres of close-mown lawn and the front garden has just a few neat beds of geraniums and some small decorative cypresses. It's a holiday bungalow, so the garden is kept to a maintenance-free minimum

- but a shaft of sunlight through the scattered pondweed shows the dancing hordes of water fleas. The water is clear and clean so I'm expecting great things in coming months.I spent a lot of time in the garden on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday. Why

, and occasionally a frog will be sitting in it. As far as I know they have never bred there. But somewhere else, near at hand, hidden from my view, there must be other small garden ponds, more frog- and toad-friendly ponds, where successful spawning does take place

We've been going to the Isle of Wight for several years now and it's a great place for the kids. It's also a great place for gardens and one of all our favourites is at the Godshill Model Village.I remember being fascinated by the place when I

.Its English name is the gorse shieldbug, and far from attacking garden plants, it focuses its attention on gorse. As far as I know there is no gorse anywhere in gardens hereabouts, but there's a small broom at the front of our house. It will also feed on other

It's cold, there's snow on the ground, and all is quiet in the garden. But I've just been outside feeding the wildlife. In my case that does not mean putting up nut-filled bird feeders or hanging fat balls, it means tipping the kitchen waste

; some perhaps a bit younger. The front gardens are small and variously walled or fenced. The very ordinary garden wall in question can only be 30 or 40 years old. Unlike the 100-and-something-year-old houses, it is not built of London yellow bricks

as to defoliate small trees. I have enough trouble keeping the rose sawfly caterpillars at bay, so I've moved Mrs vapourer and her brood to the end of the garden. Perhaps they can attack the bramble that grows over the fence from next door and threatens to engulf

. At each scale an ant would stop, tickle it with its antennae, and suck up the small droplet of honeydew that was presented.Neither of these insects has ever reached pest proportions in my garden, so I've never had need to regard them as pests. On the other