It has been a funny old year for butterflies - after a very slow start in spring, we seemed to have a bumper summer, but species such as Red Admirals still seem to be in very short supply.

One group that appears to have done very well is the whites. I don't know if you've experienced the same, but they seem to be fluttering everywhere this year.

They tend to get lumped in the public's mind as 'cabbage whites…

There are some very good and very imaginative Towns and Parks authorities out there who do the best they can with cash-strapped budgets and all the other pressures they are under to try and give wildlife a home at the same time as creating attractive looking bedding schemes.

And I'm lucky enough to regularly see the efforts put in by Brighton & Hove. I give them my own little virtual 'Gold Medal' for what they have achieved…

Here's a little test for you - how many different types of yellow can you name?

I tried this on the bus, and came up with lemon, cadmium yellow, gold, mustard and saffron before I had to switch to flowers such as daffodil yellow.

The thing is, we have one resident yellow butterfly, the Brimstone, the males of which are kind of a buttery yellow with an acid tinge. But each year a yellow butterfly from the Mediterranean…

A couple of weeks ago I was due to spend the weekend at the British Birdwatching Fair. I explain, not because of the Fair itself but because I'd set up a blog on a computerised timer so that I'd fulfil my commitment to always blog on a Friday morning. Did it appear? Did it 'eck as like. Goodness knows where that is now wandering around the ether!

What I had written about was one of my favouritest plants for…

I'm going to take you somewhere we've never been before on this blog. Brace yourself - we're going to explore the exciting world of...(cue drum beat - dum dum dum) micro moths.

No, honestly, stick with me. It's going to be better than you think.

You see I've been sticking out a moth trap once every couple of weeks in my garden if the weather is warm. And I really have enjoyed the glimpse it gives you…

I was wandering around the Bishop's Garden the other day in Chichester, admiring his herbaceous beds, and everything was as it should be on the wildlife front. The bumblebees and honeybees were running riot on the Nepeta and Eryngiums, on the Heleniums and Penstemons.

It would have been very easy to come away with the conclusion that those were the plants to grow for pollinators.

But something just about caught…

I remember only too vividly my first trip to the tip of Cornwall and seeing a plant apparently growing wild that had a 12-foot high spike of blue flowers covered in bees.

That it had the name Echium pininana was a bonus, for here was a Latin name that I could remember. The first word was a bit like 'Ecky thump' and the second sounded like a cross between a pineapple and a banana.

I was then still a teenager…

You know how some people appear all meek on the outside but hide fiery secrets on the inside - well the equivalent in the tree world is the Alder Buckthorn, and what a cracker it is for wildlife.

It is a rather straggly small tree that grows in damp and acid conditions. It's leaves are simple in shape and it doesn't bother with fiery displays of autumn hue.

Even its flowers are small and inconspicuous, tucked…

Well, after over two years of a blog every Friday, last week I missed my first. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't work the technology of the newly revamped Community pages. I'm so much safer just left in the garden!

And I'd been wanting to tell you about these roses I'd found. Previously, I just haven't 'got' roses - I've felt them to be straggly, overrated things, prone to disease, and all rather…

It's at this time of year that I seem to have hundreds of things I want to share about gardens and their wildlife. Will it be Giving Nature a Home, our new campaign where we're hoping everyone will be inspired to help wildlife in their gardens? Well, you'll certainly be hearing a lot more about that over the coming months. Or will it be something such as the glorious rose I found last week which is ADORED by bumblebees…

I hope many of you had a bash at the Garden Bioblitz the weekend before last. The simple idea was just to see what wildlife you could find in your garden, even if you didn't know what it was, and then submit your sightings online.

I was working that weekend, but fitted in a couple of half hour sessions, and it was fascinating. Too often I'm just 'too busy' in the garden to really take notice of what is going on,…

Hello, the below is direct from Adrian at Gardeners World Live!

You only really learn about something by doing it, and I can now say I’m that much wiser about what it takes to build a wildlife garden for a public show. I’m at BBC Gardeners World Live, the garden I designed last autumn has finally turned into reality, and I’m glad to say it actually looks exactly like what I had planned.

Already several…

Here it comes, the big one for the RSPB on the gardening calendar. We go to Chelsea, we go to Hampton Court, but Gardeners World Live (12-16 June) at the NEC in Birmingham is the one where we put on a show.

We don't do one of the big-dosh show gardens, but we do what is called a feature garden - it's all on a shoestring budget and is thanks to lots of brilliant volunteer support, but it is a massive undertaking. And…

** Don't forget, Garden BioBlitz this weekend, as featured on Springwatch, but you heard it here first! **

I've got this fascination for seeing our garden plants in their original native setting - it gives great clues as to how to grow them, and what wildlife might use them.

I also quite like places with wild mountains, sunshine, and, erm, maybe a little bit of red wine too.

So last week I ventured south to…

Every now and then I like to let you have a little nose into my own garden. I'm not claiming it is perfect in any way - in fact it's your chance to go, "Oooh, I'm not sure about that! I wouldn't do it that way!". But at least you can see that I do gardening as well as endlessly talking about it.

And this is the time of year to show you how my Woodland Garden is looking.

This was a month ago…

While visiting my parents in the Midlands last weekend (where I'll have you know I put in five rows of potatoes - oh yes, there was no slacking there!), I called in at my beloved Hidcote, the National Trust garden in the Cotswolds.

I spent many hours wandering around, taking photos, and indulging in my usual observation of what wildlife was where in the garden.

And, yes, there were Chiffchaffs and Bee-flies and…

I'm delighted today to welcome a guest blogger, Jane Adams, one of a group of four friends who last year came up with the idea of a national Garden Bioblitz, and who are running it again this year. It's so easy to take part, and I'd love you all to have a go.

Catching The Garden Bioblitz Bug – Don’t Worry, It isn’t Contagious!

I love my garden and I get a special buzz from seeing the wildlife…

Just opposite the South East RSPB office where I'm based is a lovely garden surrounding the Brighton Pavilion. On sunny days it throngs with local workers grabbing quality time (I love how even in the city people are still drawn to green space) and tourists taking photos of the oriental buildings.

But over the last few days, there have been a number of rather different tourists, shyly tolerating the crowds.

Here…

I am a wicked person!  I purchased two hanging baskets of trailing geraniums pink and white – lovely.  They made their debut last weekend in glorious sunshine and soon attracted the attentions of bees.  Except ............. they are not real!  Bought for purely practical reasons you understand - less dead-heading and watering to do - but boy did I feel guilty.  So, this weekend, I am going to make amends and create a…

Gardening for wildlife in pots is a fascinating challenge, and hugely rewarding. And I can say that from first-hand experience - at the RSPB South East office where I'm based, we have a roof terrace (well, it's more of a roof pit) where the only way to grow plants is in pots.

Some of you will be in the same position, having no open ground in which to plant things. For the rest of you, I bet you have patios and…

It's about time I shared progress on the RSPB feature garden we're preparing for Gardeners World Live this June at the NEC.

I quickly need to explain that it isn't one of those big budget show gardens that get all the attention. But each year, on a shoestring budget, we like to try our best to put on a good show in a big indoor garden.

Well, my design, which is all about celebrating the diversity of nature…

Thank you for your fascinating posts in response to my blog last week, with tales of all your Blackcaps, Bramblings and dog hair!

I've got story after story lining up to tell you, but they will all have to wait because the Blackcap saga got even more interesting for me today.

For once again 'my' Gingercap reappeared, merrily perching on the bird feeders and scoffing sunflower hearts and clinging to the fat ball…

I don't know about you but my bird feeders are heaving at the moment. I'm fill them up in the morning before work and by the time I'm home they're empty again.

In a normal spring this can be one of the leanest periods for many garden birds, with natural seed supplies exhausted and very few insects on the wing. So imagine what it must be like this year, given the conditions - we even had yet more snow…

Ok, on a scale of 1 to 10, how fed up are you with the spring so far? I know we Brits like talking about the weather, but we deserve to talk about it when it is like this. I've yet to see a butterfly and only one bumblebee this year. At least many of you I believe have got sunshine today (not here - the leaden grey continues) so maybe you'll have the cheer of a bit of birdsong.

I like to bring you photos that…