Even though last year’s ‘barbecue summer’ was less spectacular than expected, there were at least plenty of butterflies around. This summer, though, has been noticeable for their absence. We should consider ourselves fortunate, then, that, early on Wednesday evening, a red admiral chose our wildflower patch (or, more precisely, a concrete fence post next to [...]

Our weed patch/wannabe wildflower meadow now has at least two ‘proper’ plants growing in it: cornflower (which, admittedly, is described as an arable weed in some books), and a couple of beautiful deep-orange Siberian wallflowers. Both of the above were listed on the pack of two million seeds that we scattered last autumn, so we [...]

Mallard ducks spend lots of time in our area in spring and summer. This one on a nearby roof looks puzzled. Now, I know there’s a river around here somewhere. Darned if I can find it, though…
And then we just had to get the camera out, didn’t we?
Gee, now they’re taking pictures of me. Damn [...]

Having scattered a couple of packets (i.e., about two million seeds) of wild meadow mixture over our side border, we are still waiting for that elusive meadow to somehow miraculously appear. We suspect we might be waiting an awful long time, especially as our ‘garden’ has soil that is so free-draining it’s virtually a dustbowl. [...]