I like our garden.

Thinking more on it, I love our little wooded garden.

To have a whole, compact ecosystem just outside your front door, back door, bedroom doors and on your roof is really something special. This morning we had a young fox by the back door.

The other day we had a very noisy male Tawny owl watching us manually remove slugs from our veg beds ( in the dark, of course ). We had a Grass snake recently, often get Slow Worms, have a pleasant plague of tiny Toads, as well as some adults. Newts keep turning up all over ( and yes, I do know that they are protected ). We had two young Pike in the pond before the  lack of rain meant it drained away.

There is a Kingfisher flitting up and down the canal. We had a Wood mouse on our terrace a couple of weeks ago. A Harvest mouse on the roof. Add all the birds that bred this year, from Nuthatches to Wrens ( shame the Great Spotted Woodpeckers lost all of their chicks this year – probably to a Magpie that managed to get into the hole in the Crack Willow they were in )

With the Meadow Browns, Red Admirals, Commas, Small Coppers and the rest, to the Darters, various Damselflies and Grasshoppers, we get a lot of flying insects too. Pity we haven’t managed to get the Stag Beetles to take up residence yet, but we have lots of rotting wood waiting for them.

I always wanted a garden like this – and we’re doing pretty well at getting it sorted. Add the organic gardening practices, and it’s amazing what turns up on a quite small plot.

Now if we can get more people to let their gardens go a bit more wild, plant a few more native plants that the Bees and  Hoverflies can enjoy, and get their kids to spend a few more minutes observing, the world will be a happier place.