An eventful autumn at Oaklands

Early spring and the trees are tentative.

New Zealand and its unique flora

A winter garden in rural Herefordshire, and change is afoot.

The winter garden - jobs to do, and as always, the weather.

Spring gardening and climate change.

Clearing a wood in winter

I am trapped in Dubai (again) by the vagaries of UK travel policy around Covid and back to living vicariously at Oaklands through the...

Bird boxes for the new season at Oaklands

I was called back to the UK by an illness in the family a couple of weeks ago but once my duties as a carer were done I was able to grab...

One of our neighbours in the village is a professional ecologist and undertakes work for Herefordshire Wildlife Trust as I understand...

The bluebells are now fully out. We have watched that spring tide come up and across the country as friends and family report of their...

So I am sat at my dining table in Dubai on a Saturday evening, which is the equivalent of a Sunday evening here fighting off the "Sunday...

In Norse mythology Yggdrassil (pronounced "Eggdrazil") is the father Ash tree who holds up the sky. His highest branches in the heavens...

It has taken the best part of a week on and off to get the cleared section of woodland back to how I left it. Stumps have been taken down...

I came back to the UK on 22 August to be confronted by the resurgence of every single laurel stump in Indonesia ! I was expecting it but...

I am not clear felling obviously but taking out all the invasive laurel to open up the wood floor. With light the blue bells, primroses...

I am back for a few days over Easter and getting stuck in again to cutting back the Laurel and building rafts with the smaller branches...

I estimate 70-80 % of our small wood is overrun with invasive Laurel. A big disappointment. The leaves and brash are poisonous - full of...

One thing I want to do with this site is to "bio-blitz" our few acres. Blitz is probably another exaggeration - what I really mean is...