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We didn't have a pond when I was growing up. I always wanted one, but blew it after trying to walk on water once at Notcutts. I was hauled out and sent home wearing a bin bag, which put paid to any attempts at having a pond at home until many years later.My mum finally let me dig...

It's finally arrived - that November damp chill enough to make me nag the girls into wearing a proper coat as they set off to the bus-stop for school. They're having none of it though. As I wander round the garden, examining the scorched earth from last weekend's fireworks and pe...

With so many people reporting sightings of unusual birds in their gardens - and observing some pretty odd behaviour - I'm struggling to entice anything other than pigeons to my plot. I don't know if I should even take part in this year's RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.Birds will only ...

Snow is not the best weather for finding insects, so I was not surprised, last week, when my brief wander up the garden found nothing. It didn’t help that I was under sustained attack from snowballing children at the time. But as my fellow bloggers have pointed out, snow does mak...

This week at gardenersworld.com we've received lots of letters, emails and blog comments from people who have found dead frogs in their pond. I've not seen my rescue frogs since October – I'm hoping they’re tucked up safely in the compost bin. But others haven’t been so lucky.I a...

is an obvious choice: native British trees don't just absorb CO2, but provide food and shelter for wildlife. Composting helps reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill and journeys to take it there, and growing your own fruit and veg reduces food waste

The caterpillars of the oak processionary moth are a real pest, but I couldn't contemplate killing them. I find myself in this situation regularly. So many so-called pests are creatures I'm quite happy to live alongside and I do so without a second thought.The oak processionary m...

It was the attentive cat looking out through the back door that first drew my eye to the grey squirrel. Even though its head was hidden, and therefore it could not see her, she knew that there was no point in dashing out through the cat flap; by the time she had four paws on the ...

Yesterday I discovered cuckoo spit on my red valerian (Centranthus ruber). It's considered a pest by many gardeners, but, for me, it's a symbol of great achievement: I've successfully converted a barren, paved courtyard into a lush, green (albeit tiny) garden.The garden isn't per...

Thankfully, Buster the guinea-pig has a thick night-time cover of old carpet, otherwise he might have been shocked to discover the fornication going on outside his hutch one morning last week. When I peered out from the kitchen at 6.30am, two great grey slugs (Limax maximus) were...