Most of the plants in the garden have shot up this summer, but especially this group growing in the mead where we no longer mow. The yellow ones are Rudbeckia laciniata, and the purple ones are New England Aster while the "model provided for scale" is standing right next to the asters [...]
Back in the spring we admitted a measure of defeat in the garden over the ability of small rodents, cute chipmunks, to get past our defensive barriers and dig up and kill/eat lily bulbs in pots. Something would have to be done! A few weeks later four huge and heavy boxes were [...]
Welcome to our Garden ... On the eve of what may be the hottest and most humid weekend of the summer we thought to invite our friends to a "virtual open day". Welcome all ... Five years ago this was a suburban garden with a lawn. Plenty of shrubs and native plants [...]
Something a little unusual in this morning's garden. This is a "Bee Fly" and possibly Exoprosopa decora ... the Progressive Bee Fly. To quote from the internet - a member of the Bombyliidae which is a family of flies (diptera) comprising hundreds of genera, but the life cycles of most species are [...]
Washing some fresh kale brought in from the garden last night, J came face to face with a spider. As one does. Being a naturalist of stout mien she put it in one of the insect pots that are strategically placed around our house for just such encounters and asked me if this [...]
The garden is about to suffer under a many-day heatwave starting tomorrow, but this morning with the light diffused by thin cloud it was pleasant to wander through the head high native flowers and enjoy their colours and varied forms. This is not quite the peak summer flower-show yet but that's not [...]
Our garden has no lawn - it has native flowers and is never mown ... J put together the illustrated vase of flowers. Some would call these weeds but they would be wrong. Not flashy, just nice. From a photography point of view I think I need to dispose of that railing on [...]
We thought you might like to come with us for a short walk in the evening garden at the end of June. Turn up the sound for the birdsong and pour yourself a G&T. This is what you can have to enjoy once you stop mowing your lawn. In a very few [...]
About a month on from the last virtual visit to the no-mow garden. Everything is growing really well and in great profusion. Here are a few images from a walk-round this afternoon. So much more interest than a mown patch of alien grasses. The next stage, starting in June, will be the [...]
Our front garden does not get the attention it perhaps should, given that it it what people see as they pass by. When we came here 24 years ago it was fairly open with one large paper birch tree at the northern edge (that tree was what attracted me to buy the house [...]