My experiment
Simon has been restoring Wild Meadows for three years. By planting trees, digging a lake and sowing meadows, he is showing how quickly wildlife like otters, badgers and tawny owls can return, and…
Water vole by Terry Whittaker/2020VISION
Simon has been restoring Wild Meadows for three years. By planting trees, digging a lake and sowing meadows, he is showing how quickly wildlife like otters, badgers and tawny owls can return, and…
Look for the deep magenta, star-shaped flowers of Marsh cinquefoil in marshes, bogs, fens and wetlands in the north, west and east of the UK.
Despite its name, Ground-ivy is actually a member of the dead-nettle family. It is a clump-forming, aromatic plant that likes woodlands, hedgerows and damp places.
Provide food for caterpillars and choose nectar-rich plants for butterflies and you’ll have a colourful, fluttering display in your garden for many months.
Just as the bluebells finish flowering in our woodlands, the rose-red blooms of red campion start to brighten up the woodland floor. Look for this pretty plant in hedges and roadsides, too.
Meadow buttercup is a tall and stately buttercup, with buttery-yellow flowers that pepper meadows, pastures, gardens and parks with little drops of sunshine.
Look for the pinky-white flowers of the dog-rose in summer, and its bright red rosehips in autumn. It is a scrambling shrub of hedgerows, woodlands and grasslands.
The dark-blue flowers of Common milkwort pepper our grasslands from May to September. It can also appear in pink and white forms.
The stately grass-of-parnassus displays pretty, white flowers with green stripes. Once widespread, it is now declining as its wetland habitats are disappearing.
The hart's-tongue fern is a hardy fern of damp, shady places in woodlands. It also makes a good garden fern. It has simple, tongue-shaped, glossy, green leaves that have orange spores on…
This beautiful moth is often found resting on leaves, though it does also fly during the day.