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A bit of garden clearance in the rain is always therapeutic. Working off a good lunch and feeling the drip of water down my neck, I feel my endeavours are all the more noble. Actually all I'm doing is ripping the vine out of the apple tree it's been

sides, as in ambidextrous) and bios (life), meaning that these wonderful creatures are equally happy on both sides of the water/land divide.Very shortly, pond or no, gardens are more likely to see frogs and toads than ever, because now is the start

, and for which I do not need to download the wrong sort of software: the pond.Early this summer it sprung a leak and the water dropped 30 centimetres leaving an unsightly fringe of stained black plastic liner. I've been meaning to get round to it for months. Now

I've been building, not so much a garden pond, as a playground pond. And the first problem with playgrounds is that they are all-over tarmac. The obvious site for Ivydale Primary School's new pond was a sunny, but extremely bleak corner next

Our tomatoes have not done very well this year, a combination of slow start and inadequate watering whilst we were away on holiday. But further down the street someone has done much better. They've obviously had a glut because a cardboard box

- 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

, solid bright apple green thorax and broad strong tail stripes (green in female, blue in male). This is a bit early for one of the large hawker dragonflies, which normally start to fly from mid-June onwards. I'm guessing it came from a small garden pond

for the Gardeners' World blog wildlife caption competition. How about...Buster: "Get me out of here."Frog: "No, let me in, there are cats out here."What do you think?

slightly irritated when I read one of the kids' story books, in which someone discovers a frog or toad in the garden and their subsequent quest to find a suitable aquatic home for its release. Amphibians only go into water to breed in spring. Most

At certain times of the year, as I look out over my back garden, I see a huge heron perched on the chimney stacks of the next street. It's an infrequent, but fairly regular visitor and I often wonder what is attracting it. Our garden pond, up