My 'Square Meadow' is a vastly over-inflated name for a little experiment in which I have been seeing how feasible it is to convert a bog-standard piece of lawn turf with not a single other plant in it (I know because I laid it myself) into a wildlife-rich mini-meadow.

We are talking an area that is barely 3 metres by 3 metres (10 foot by 10 foot), with my birdbath in the middle.

This blog tells the story of its…

it's that time of year when I'm prone to going a bit 'gooey' in the garden, a bit maternal, because there are baby birds popping out everywhere who just look like they need a good cuddle.

So this pair, huddled together on a branch of my spruce tree, were bound to set me off.

But what were these two little fluffballs with their stubby little wings?

See if you can work out what they are from the other side…

I popped into my mum's in Worcestershire last week, and was delighted to have my sleep accompanied by the quiet frothy twittering of the nesting House Martins outside the bedroom window.

On her house, they nest under both the east facing eaves at the back and the west facing eaves at the front, some in artificial nestcups, others in 'self-builds'. This one is poking out of an artifical nestcup, a wise choice as a…

In my garden mini-meadow, a minor miracle is underway.

For a few weeks now, these little creatures have been prominent, munching away at my Bird’s-foot Trefoil leaves.

They are the caterpillars of Six-spot Burnet Moths, whose parents colonised the meadow last summer in a blaze of red-spotty glory.

And now the caterpillars are fully gorged on their very specific vegan diet, it is time for them to make the transition…

Now how about that for a snappy blog title? Oh, how ‘Boraginaceae’ just slips off the tongue!

In fact, you wouldn't want to put them anywhere near your tongue, or at least their leaves, because the Boraginaceae are some of the bristliest plants you can find, covered in tiny rough hairs full of silica.

But they are a total winner in the wildlife-friendly garden because they have some of the very best flowers…

"Dancing with the Longhorns" - sounds like the title of an epic Western movie, doesn't it? But this is a tale from much closer to home and on a more intimate scale.

You see, as I pottered around my garden one evening this week, my eye chanced on a curious little insect sat motionless on a Garlic Mustard seedpod.

We’re talking a creature less than a centimetre long, but what struck me was what looked like…

I was delighted recently to receive this wonderful email from Catherine Djimramadji, and found the story so eloquent and moving that I wanted to share it with you all.

The photos are mine, but the story is all Catherine's. Enjoy!

It was, for me, an enormous relief to stumble into wildlife gardening a few years ago. Growing up with the underlying assumption that gardening was essentially a battle against nature, the…

I bet you've noticed how the recent cool conditions have really suppressed insect activity. Gardens are not yet humming, literally.

So at least this week I was glad to find this distinctive lady roving around the Thrift blooming in my Seaside Garden.

She is an Ashy Mining Bee, Andrena cineraria, one of the most distinctive of all our 230 or so species of solitary bee.

She is about the size of a Honeybee or slightly…

Once in a while, I put aside most of the words and just let nature do the talking.

So, today, a blog that is about no more than the joys of spring in the garden.

Yes, I know it has been witheringly cold, and we could all do with a bit of warmth for our cockles, but I humbly offer you sunshine, butterflies and spring flowers.

To start, a Peacock butterfly drinking dew from a daffodil

I'm a sucker for a tulip or two in…

Some wildlife that I have tried to encourage to breed in my garden came within months, weeks, days even.

But Starlings? There was clearly no history of them being here, no holes suitable for them, nowhere with the short vegetation they need to feed.

Six years later, and with beautiful Starling nestboxes adorning my house, at last, they've decided to set up home here. And I love them - the little bird of stars, as the…

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I’ve stolen today’s blog title from Shakespeare. Oh, how I doth spoil thee!

You see, in The Tempest, the fairy Ariel is released from the servitude of Prospero, and delights in his freedom in the simple things of life:

“Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip’s bell I lie.”

In other words, the joy of liberty for Ariel is summed up…

The loud outpourings of song from my Blackbirds, Blackcaps, Robins and Great Tits dominate my garden soundscape at the moment, but as I pass under the spruce tree, I often hear a very high-pitched and rather feeble little warble. 'Sicily sicily sicily silly-so', it goes.

It is the song of the King of the Birds, whose scientific name means just that - Regulus regulus. Little King, little king.

And here it is in…

I rather over-estimated the speed of my recovery from this labyrinthitis, so it has meant yet more time (and still more to come) away from computers, gently recuperating.

Whenever possible, you'll find me spreadeagled in the sun, gently dozing.

So I've been pleased to see that it has been much the same for wildlife in my garden, such as this Peacock butterfly on a lying log.

It turned out to be a very popular…

Your eyes do not deceive you - nor your ears! Today I am going to talk about the sounds of birds AND butterflies.

It comes as I (hopefully) recover from a long bout of labyrinthitis, which has laid me low for over a month now. For much of that, I have had very little sense of balance, and have struggled to focus my eyes (hence no recent blogs, and a short 'ease back in' one today).

As you can imagine, not being…

While visiting my mum in our Christmas bubble, I took a walk around her village and was delighted to see this:

I don't mean the black-and-white thatched cottage, delightful as it is. No, I mean the home-made fence. What a wonderful way to recycle what I assume are old branches from the back garden, or at least from somewhere very local. No importing here of fence panels from some Scandinavian or Latvian forest.

I know the country is still in a deep freeze, but all the more reason to leap forward in our minds to imagine the forthcoming spring, summer and autumn filled with sunshine and butterflies. That, plus the prospect of birdsong and blossom, certainly helps me through this Covid marathon.

Oh, and I’m also on a promise to talk about such things. A couple of weeks ago I talked about how well different groups of creatures…

It looks like many of you might find yourself under a blanket of snow this weekend, but don't be misled - the year is cracking on apace, we're into February already, and that means it is time to start sowing seeds, at least indoors.

Growing plants from seed can sound like it is something for the 'experts' only, the green-fingered ones. But no, no, and an even more emphatic no! Growing from seed is a miracle open…

I was taking half an hour out from screen-sitting to do a little bit of digging of my new pond-to-be when all hell broke loose in the garden two doors down. The air filled with a raucous cawing as some Carrion Crows went crazy about something.

But it wasn't just a handful of them, which is the typical number I see in or from my garden. No, there were dozens of them.

This photo shows at least 27 (plus a Jackdaw on…

How well is wildlife doing in your garden? Are its populations going up, or down? Are all your efforts bearing fruit?

Given that I spend so much time promoting all the things that people might like to do to help wildlife in their gardens, it is rather important that I back it up with some hard evidence. I spend hours trying to help wildlife, but does it actually work?

Well, with the turn of the year, that's another year…

There are four big reasons why I leave flower stems and seedheads standing in my flower borders throughout the winter.

1) There is every chance that they will provide winter seed for birds

The most familiar example is of Goldfinches feeding on Teasel (above), but just as effective can be Verbena bonariensis, Chicory, lavenders, burdocks, Eryngiums and Rudbeckias.

2) The second reason is that the architecture of stems…

Brrrrrrrrr! It's Thursday afternoon as I write this, the sun has just set, and I've just come in from outside where most of the frost hadn't lifted all day. I swear I've got icicles forming on my appendages.

The ice on the pond had formed dramatic starbursts today...

..while rime attractively picked out all the veins on fallen leaves.

It's alright for us, diving into our centrally heated houses, but…

I hope you and those around you have made it safely into 2021, and that you found creative ways to make this festive period as enjoyable as possible.

I know many of you will still be in holiday mode right now, so if you are looking for little things to do on these long evenings, I thought I’d offer you one option to fill 15 minutes  or so: a garden wildlife quiz. In fact, I’ve based it entirely around the nation…

I get so excited at this time of year knowing that the most exciting day of the year is about to happen. Let's hear it for the 22nd of December - yeah!

No, it's not my birthday. It's special because it is the day after the shortest day. On 21 December, from sunrise to sunset here in Sussex was 7 hours, 56 minutes and 29 seconds. On the 22nd, I get an extra three seconds. The further north you are, well, you're looking…