I planted my first native hedge ten years ago.

When I say ‘hedge’, think more about a 15-metre line of the weakest-looking bare twigs sticking out of the ground. Frankly it looked pathetic. At that stage it clearly didn’t offer wildlife anything except a good laugh.

But I followed the text book, laid squares of old carpet around their base, gave them the odd bucket of water, and hoped for the best…

As well as my own perambulations around my own garden and those of others, I like to try and keep up with stories in the national press that are relevant to us wildlife gardeners. So here are the headlines from the last few months:

The shape of British summers to come?
Various of the papers reported the prediction that the wet, cloudy summer we have had could become something of a fixture in future years due to the melting…

In my quest to probe around the gardens of Britain to find what wildlife is doing what, I always get a thrill when I make a new discovery.

So last weekend was especially exciting when I found a new plant attractive to nectaring butterflies while visiting the lovely Merriments Garden in East Sussex.

(Now when I say 'new', I fully expect that someone else has known about it for ages. But it was definitely a new one to…

I've been meaning to write this blog for a while. I know I'm prone to getting excited, but I'm telling you this is AMAZING!

In May, I got to fulfil a dream and visit Shetland. Yes, amazing scenery, stunning seabird colonies, Otters - the works.

But I most certainly wasn't going to go all that way and not check out what gardening is like in such a far-flung, wind-lashed, rain-soaked place.

Now most of…