The rolling hills south of Salisbury Plain are a bleak scene of vast arable fields and tightly grazed pasture dotted with scores of sheep. In…
View More ‘Enormously exciting’: farm to create biggest natural grassland in southern EnglandTag: Wild flowers
‘Just keep going’: the horse-riding 97-year-old botanist battling for England’s wildflowers
Margaret Bradshaw crouches on all fours on Widdybank Fell in Teesdale, being drenched by sheets of horizontal rain. The 97-year-old botanist mumbles the names of…
View More ‘Just keep going’: the horse-riding 97-year-old botanist battling for England’s wildflowersGardeners urged to ‘keep it local’ when creating a wildflower meadow
Gardeners hoping to establish a wildflower patch in their gardens should be wary of generic seed mixes and stick to local blooms to best serve…
View More Gardeners urged to ‘keep it local’ when creating a wildflower meadowYoung country diary: All the things you can do with a daisy | Mathilde
My friend Ida and me, we love making daisy chains in our local park in south London. Daisies are very usual in open spaces. They…
View More Young country diary: All the things you can do with a daisy | Mathilde‘Like stroppy teenagers’: the joy of hunting devious and demanding orchids
It’s a Friday, and half a dozen retirees are scouring the ground for flowers. We’re on chalk grassland in Noar Hill nature reserve in Hampshire.…
View More ‘Like stroppy teenagers’: the joy of hunting devious and demanding orchidsCountry diary: Why I let nature take its course in my ever-changing garden
Our house is disappearing, as it does every year. After the flourish of spring flowers, there’s a pause, then a surge, when drifts of green…
View More Country diary: Why I let nature take its course in my ever-changing gardenBursting into flower: the growth of sustainable blooms
Close to the River Teme, in the shadow of the Malvern Hills, with three farm cats playing around our feet, Meg Edmonds is showing me…
View More Bursting into flower: the growth of sustainable bloomsMow problem: gardeners encouraged not to cut lawns in May
The number of people not mowing their lawns is increasing after a successful campaign to keep gardens wild, a leading nature charity says. Gardeners are…
View More Mow problem: gardeners encouraged not to cut lawns in MaySpring in the countryside is a wonder – but it is tinged with sadness | Emma Beddington
Last spring, I finally moved out of town. That makes it sound like I gave in after decades of edgy murder-mile living, rivers of piss,…
View More Spring in the countryside is a wonder – but it is tinged with sadness | Emma BeddingtonDank, ancient and quite fantastic: Scotland’s peat bogs breathe again
Flanders Moss bog is slumped on the flat, farmed landscape of the Carse of Stirling in Scotland like a jelly fungi. It wobbles when you…
View More Dank, ancient and quite fantastic: Scotland’s peat bogs breathe again