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A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology suggests that gardens make better habitats for bumblebees than the countryside. This isn't surprising, as field margins and hedgerows have become scarce over the years, so many species

of the garden. Backing onto a busy cycle path that runs between a pub and a bus stop, it’s routinely littered with pizza crusts and chicken bones. It’s easy to blame the goldfinches, but the problem lies with us.Many thanks to Amy Lewis, Wildlife Trusts

.Snails mostly feed at night; mild, damp conditions suiting them best. Go out with a torch and collect them by hand. Either re-home them on a patch of waste ground, well away from your garden as they have a homing instinct, or drop them in a bucket of hot, salty

The orb webs of the garden spider, Araneus diadematus are much in evidence as the nights get cooler, especially in the morning when their dew- or rain-covered tracery is revealed all over the bushes.It's fascinating to watch them being created first

I used to see foxes all the time. Whenever I looked out of the window there was almost certainly one sniffing about in the garden or strolling nonchalantly down the street. Winter nights were alive with the unearthly yelps and screams of the males

plumipes is not a bumblebee (although it's about the same size), and has no commonly used English name, which is a shame because it's a characteristic and widespread garden insect. I've always described it as the 'feather-footed bee' (the Latin - plumipes

by livestock soon after application there is no reason to believe that children, pets, gardeners or wildlife are at risk.If your crops have been affected, contact the farmer that supplies your manure to return it. I assumed you could probably stack up your muck

I'm spluttering with indignation.In the dozen or so years that we've gardened here, I've boasted that we've been almost completely free of mammalian vermin: a rabbit emerged once but our two (very efficient) Tibetan terriers soon resolved

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

At last, a butterfly in my garden. Now I know from comments on previous blogs that others have already seen lots this year. There's a tendency to brag about them, I think. But my garden was empty of butterflies until Saturday. Then, like buses