Winter expectant skiesthe swan road is emptywatch and waitwill the northern herds appear?
Wildlife
Notice to Quit
A Cautionary Tail To whom it may concern(this includes Common Field Mice, luchan-feòir, Apodemus sylvaticus, Field Voles, Short-tailed Voles, famhalain feòir, Microtus agrestris )You have been given friendly warnings and advised that you are not allowed to live in the polytunnel during the winter. The Head Gardener has already relocated one of you to the garden wall but you have had the
Arrivals and Departures
I should know better by now but the arrival of autumn always takes me by surprise. The gold of the buttercups is fading and the bleached heads of the grasses are a pale cream highlighted by the richer hues of the red clover. Russet brown seed heads of the wild angelica stand tall like skeletal
Dog days of August
When the air is heavy and the horizon indigo with distant thunder lethargy stalks the garden as the plants and the gardeners grow languid. The borders are blowsy and going to seed like an ageing actress insisting that she must go on to please her adoring audience of bees. The vibrant colours of the cottage
Ladybird, Ladybird
In these distant isles ladybirds are rare gems. Every year I search the garden and polytunnel for these beneficial beetles, whose larvae gobble aphids at a prodigious rate, and I’m lucky if I find one or two.Whether it is for reasons of geography, climate or an unpredictable food supply we only find the 11-spot ladybird