Chemical-free organic gardening
Go chemical-free in your garden to help wildlife! Here's how to prevent slugs and insects from eating your plants with wildlife-friendly methods.
Go chemical-free in your garden to help wildlife! Here's how to prevent slugs and insects from eating your plants with wildlife-friendly methods.
Yellow corydalis is a familiar 'weed' of gardens, walls and rocky places. It is a garden escapee in the UK, so is not a native plant. Try choosing natives for your garden to prevent…
The dark-blue flowers of Common milkwort pepper our grasslands from May to September. It can also appear in pink and white forms.
Growing in tufts, Crested dog's-tail is a stiff-looking grass, with a tightly packed, rectangular flower spike. Look for it in lowland meadows and grasslands.
Perennial rye-grass is a tufted, vigorous grass of roadside verges, rough pastures and waste ground. It is commonly used in agriculture and for reseeding grasslands.
In mild years, the spring-flowering primrose can appear as early as December. Look out for its pretty, creamy-yellow flowers in woodlands and grasslands.
The Brown argus favours open, chalk and limestone grasslands, but can also be spotted on coastal dunes, in woodland clearings and along disused railways.
Wild carrot does, indeed, smell of carrots, but the roots are not like our cultivated, dinnertime favourite. Look for this umbellifer on chalk grasslands and coasts.
Cock's-foot is a common, tussocky grass of grasslands, woodland rides and cultivated ground - its fluffy, pinky-beige flower heads are quite distinctive.
The ragged-edged, purple flower heads of Greater knapweed bloom on sunny chalk grasslands and clifftops, and along woodland rides. They attract clouds of butterflies.
An easily overlooked orchid, the Common twayblade is yellow-green and less showy than other UK orchids. Look for it in woodlands and grasslands on chalky soils, in particular.
The Migrant hawker is not a particularly aggressive species, and may be seen feeding in large groups. It flies late into autumn and can be seen in gardens, grasslands and woodlands.