Category Archives:
Asperger’s Steampunk stories!
Since he was a baby, my eldest son (now 32) has always loved steam engines, gears, cogs and levers; we took him to all the railway museums, the hands-on science museums etc. for years before we found out he had Asperger’s Syndrome. He loved stories by Jules Verne and other Victorian Sci Fi, And when […]
Chelsea Show gardens for Wildlife!
It was rather ironic that I went down to London to see how much wildlife gardening was evident in the Chelsea Show gardens, only to be kept awake the night before by the wild foxes in my mother-in-law’s garden in Hackney. She is being driven mad by them. Two dear little foxcubs galloping, shrieking […]
Natural History Museum Travesty
Several events conspired to make me think differently about the whole idea of garden design, conservation and green space in cities recently. I went down to London with my husband especially to see Tom Stoppard’s play ‘Travesties’ at the Apollo, with Tom Hollander in the lead role. We last saw it about 35 years ago, […]
Live Willow-work with schools
Winter is the time to use live willow, and get your kids outside having fun and keeping warm while they build a den for themselves. Living willow takes root so easily in damp ground that you only need to make a hole with a metal rod (at least a foot deep) and push the dormant […]
Activities to Dye for!
Chemicals in the garden – they have always been there! I had the kids’ Wildlife Trust WATCH group here last weekend; we had a go at using native dye plants like Woad, Weld and Madder that I grow. Interestingly a lot of dye plants are good nectar sources for insects when they flower. But Woad […]
Nests and Nestboxes
It wasn’t til I was about 30 that I realised that wild birds don’t live in nests all the time. They only build them to rear young, the rest of the time they roost in hedges, trees, reeds etc. But the way we are taught about wildlife as children is so anthropomorphic that a bird’s […]
Golfcourses- Helping Diamonds in the Roughs
Helping butterflies and other pollinators, plus other wildlife in the roughs.Pitchcare-Butterflies When I lived in Manchester in the 1980s we once had an elderly Yorkshireman come to speak to us at my local natural history club. The Reverend C. E. Shaw, (childhood mentor of celebrated gardener Roy Lancaster) calling himself ‘thou t’wold vicar’, was short […]
Our Living Churchyards
Did you know that there are just two areas of our countryside that may have the only remnants of our ancient wildflowers? One is the road verge and the other is the churchyard. Because neither have been ploughed up, re-seeded, fertilised (well not from above, anyway) or sprayed with weedkiller (much). But they have been […]
Wildlife Garden Open Day
I opened my garden to the public for a wildlife garden experience on a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of September. The sun made all the difference! Children were encouraged to come and get involved in pond-dipping, moth-trapping, looking down a microscope at tiny creatures in soil and water-butt water and collecting seeds. It was […]
Growing veg with a Primary school
As a volunteer for Butterfly Conservation and the North Wales Wildlife Trust, I have designed and planted many school wildlife gardens in my locality over 10 years or more, with varying degrees of success. But how do you measure ‘success’? Is it about continuity of habitat and species conservation; is it about continuity of the […]