Category: Wildlife

Wildlife – mainly creatures rather than plants

Why I garden, Wildlife13 Comments

Why flowers are better than car parks

Reclaiming Paradise

I was out in the front garden looking for joys for #SixonSaturday and was overcome by all the beauty of the flowers and bees. Time for my annual ‘why do people cover their front gardens in paving when they can have all this instead?’ blog post. Here are six pictures which I hope will explain why flowers are better than car parks Osteospermum with self-seeded Canterbury bells and a Small White butterfly 2. Wild roses with more self-seeded Canterbury Bells 3. Bee on self-seeded lavender 4. Cherries – almost ripe – need to pick them before the blackbirds get them … Continue reading Why flowers are better than car parks

Why I garden, Wildlife2 Comments

Friday night delight

Reclaiming Paradise

It’s been a bit of a week (a bit of a month actually) but it was a lovely evening so we had our tea in the garden – we had ‘leftover delight’, which is basically ‘what’s in the fridge? Let’s just heat it up’. Tonight that meant leftover vegetable curry with some rather aged microwaveable rice. It all tasted fine. What was really delightful though was the complete mess of self-seeded and other flowers, waving around in the wind, and Bella walking purposefully past on her way to check out any leftovers under the garden table. The garden has gone … Continue reading Friday night delight

Why I garden, Wildlife5 Comments

Birds’ Eye View

Reclaiming Paradise

This weekend has been the Big Garden Bird Watch, the weekend when everyone tries to count the birds in their gardens, and the birds go off for their holidays somewhere else. This weekend the birds in my garden had two very good excuses not to hang about: on Saturday storm Malik blew most of them away, apart from a couple of brave wood pigeons; and on Sunday this impressive beast decided to sunbathe in the garden, scaring off the birds somewhat. Sorry it’s a bit blurred. I didn’t want to get too close in case I scared it away. It … Continue reading Birds’ Eye View

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Wildlife11 Comments

Six from a frosty allotment

Reclaiming Paradise

I nipped along to the allotment today to see if Storm Arwen had done any damage (it hadn’t). So here are #SixOnSaturday from the allotment. This year’s very impressive runner beans were still standing, if looking a little the worse for wear, so I cut down all the bean tendrils for the compost bin: The sweet peas are still hanging on in there, so I left the wigwam up to provide them with a bit of support. Didn’t manage to get an in focus photo though (I blame my frozen fingers). I found a desiccated bean and brought it home … Continue reading Six from a frosty allotment

Uncategorized, Wildlife5 Comments

Pedalling for a greener future

Reclaiming Paradise

Today was not a gardening day but it was a day to be out on my bike with several hundred cyclists on the Edinburgh route to the demonstration in Glasgow for COP26. We knew we would not make it the whole way to Glasgow as we had other family commitments in Edinburgh. I was pleased to have a family group of three bikes at the start in Edinburgh’s Meadows We cycled through the Edinburgh streets and along the main roads out of the city with about 300 other cyclists and felt we were doing our tiny bit to argue for … Continue reading Pedalling for a greener future

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden, Wildlife4 Comments

July garden: foxes and thunderstorms

Reclaiming Paradise

Falling behind with blogging again but here’s some of what’s been going on in the garden: Lots of flowers all coming out just now. Strawberries and raspberries at their best – and good enough to make some rather yummy strawberry scones to share with my sons who managed to be here at the same time for the first time in many months. Vegetables coming along slowly. Here are some of the peas and the first cucumber: We had an impressive thunderstorm and extensive flooding at the weekend. All fine in my garden but the roads round about turned into rivers. … Continue reading July garden: foxes and thunderstorms

Wildlife2 Comments

A wild month

Reclaiming Paradise

And so we come to the end of June and the end of the #30DaysWild Challenge. Some people set out to do something wild every day, taking them on all sorts of adventures. My wildness has been rather urban and rather garden based. I just look for something wild every day. Here’s a summary of what I’ve seen in June. That wasn’t everything but there were a lot of bees, a lot of wildflowers and quite a lot of the cygnets and herons on Inverleith Pond. I’ve been watching these swan fluffballs since they were tiny. They’re quite big now … Continue reading A wild month

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Why I garden, Wildlife7 Comments

Halfway through 30 Days Wild

Reclaiming Paradise

I’m a bit behind with blogging this week but I thought I’d catch up by celebrating the wonder of June and the tiny joys of #30DaysWild. This campaign encourages people to get outside and enjoy the wildness around them. For some, that means getting out into the countryside or down to the beach and exploring the wildness. For me it is nearly always urban and this year, like last year, it has been largely confined to wildness in my garden and the streets round about. But there is no shortage of wild joys to be found even in quite a … Continue reading Halfway through 30 Days Wild

Books I like, Wildlife1 Comment

Very Hungry Caterpillars – in memory of Eric Carle

Reclaiming Paradise

So sad to hear today of the death of Eric Carle, author and illustrator of one of the world’s most favourite children’s books ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. It was also a favourite in our house and I’ve blogged about it before, along with some of our other favourite children’s books involving gardening or wildlife. As I wrote, back in 2014, one of the things about this book is that it makes you much more sympathetic to the more destructive creatures in the garden: they have to eat after all. So RIP Eric Carle and thank you for bringing us such … Continue reading Very Hungry Caterpillars – in memory of Eric Carle

Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, Recycling and reusing, Wildlife7 Comments

Dreich

Reclaiming Paradise

It’s dreich, a word chosen as the most popular Scottish word in a poll a few years ago – link here. Anyway, it’s usually reserved by me for November which is month which is nearly always dreich. Not May. But here we are, experiencing a dreich May and trying to make the most of it. Despite the incessant rain, there have been some moments of sunshine and I did manage to get into the garden to look for ‘wildflowers’ for ‘International Biodiversity Day‘ on Saturday. I found this little collection, all growing in the lawn and tweeted it for #SixonSaturday … Continue reading Dreich