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I have cats. Every so often I have to live with the guilt that they kill the local wildlife. It's usually one of the mice breeding in the compost heaps or a blue-tit fledgling. The main hunter is the black and white one; lovely and soft and over

of wildlife. They're also much better adapted at dealing with our soils and climate, being able to withstand long periods of dry weather, and will grow in difficult areas of the garden.I've just lifted the concrete slabs of my back yard, in a bid to transform

.I'm surprised, though, to see little sign of wildlife at any of these flower pots - just a lone honeybee and a couple of pigeons.It is only down by the river's edge that I can see what I might call real wildlife in a garden. A tiny concrete balcony

. Not that simple at all.In this case, the tree being felled was a massive cypress, a good 15 metres high and probably four metres across near the base; it was a great blemish of a tree, a dark hulk, a brooding monster. Whatever people’s attitudes to gardening might

in May. Would they have checked for nesting birds?As gardeners we're conditioned to work with wildlife. We avoid tidying borders in winter, trimming hedges in nesting season, and are frequently reminded of the benefits of having a pond. But this message

Watching blue tits hopping in and out of one of my nest boxes at the weekend, I was reminded of another important job for this month. I need to open all the boxes around my garden and clear out the old nesting material.I know that one of my boxes

After writing an article on how and why to keep a garden wildlife diary for BBC Gardener's World Magazine, I've been invited to go electronic and turn it into a blog. My handwriting is atrocious so maybe this will be a good way of keeping the diary

Although autumn hangs heavier in the air with each day, it only takes a brief break in the clouds to bring shy wildlife back out into the open. So it was on Friday last week when I headed for the horticultural delights of North Woolwich. Here

After last week's excitement about the ladybird party on the BBC allotment, I was delighted to learn that the UK Ladybird Survey had a stand at this year’s Gardeners' World Live.There’s always a few wildlife charities at the show and each year I

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?