I thought I’d do a quick ‘photo audit’ of what is in flower and fruit in my new garden at the moment and the answer is…not a lot!

Of course, that makes me very happy because I know I can make a huge difference in the years to come.

On the flower front, White Dead-nettles are having a late flush of flower.

Notice the leaf-mine in the big lower leaf, looking like a wiggly pale trail. I suspect…

One of the staple ways of giving nature a home in small gardens is to grow climbers. Given the lack of space, it is a brilliant way of using vertical bare surfaces and filling them with foliage and flowers, with all the benefits that that brings.

But one question I'm often asked is what alternatives are there to Ivy - it might be a brilliant plant for wildlife but those aerial roots can be a right menace to your brickwork…

Last week I bemoaned the lack of fungi in my new garden.

So what then happens? Barely a couple of days later, I was probing deep under the canopy of a Holm Oak and found about five mushroom-type toadstools, big ones, the size of a saucer. Excellent - my garden isn't quite the fungal desert I thought it was.

I must photograph those, I thought, so I came back the next day with my camera and they were gone! You ought…