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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

at the weekend. It was only when I was looking at the RSPB Homes for Wildlife website that I notice they advise not to use tap-water. Since the new ring-main was built through South London about 10 years ago, the chlorine levels in our drinking water have gone

stacked layers of old railway sleepers. It's not large, only 3.5 by 1.5 metres. And although it is over a metre deep in one corner, it shelves to nothing in another. Oh well, I'll just use the rest on the shed roof, where the roofing felt has ripped

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

, using railway sleepers, three high (about 50 cm), to make a raised water body. Triangular in shape, 2 metres long, with a deep corner dug down a further 50 cm and a shallow corner for marginal plants. Three species of damselfly, two species of dragonfly

counted about 15, the same number we get every year, give or take. They're late this year; in 2007 it was May 2nd.Then it was newts, three of them paddling about at the bottom of the pond. They were easily visible against the new butyl liner I had to put

on the pavement. There was only one possible course of action available: bring it round to my house for an expert opinion and a photo shoot.It was a female emperor dragonfly, Anax imperator, our largest and most colourful species, with a wingspan reaching 107mm

After the frantic time of summer holidays, when it's as much as I can do to remember to mow the lawn occasionally or throw a bucket of water on anything that's drooped dangerously, we are edging back to the normal routines of work, school and ... a

the washing. Whatever, suddenly there it was, hopping sedately up the lawn.Frogs always cause a hullabaloo in our garden and this one was soon surrounded by curious children, wondering where it had come from, and what they were to do about it. Leave it alone