Dear Readers, in an attempt to keep up my fitness after all that walking in Austria, I have been meandering around East Finchley and Muswell Hill, supposedly at a brisk pace. Alas, I keep getting distracted by various plants, and even find myself having conversations with them, which means I get a wide birth from other pedestrians.

In the photo above is the site of the old petrol station on East Finchley High Road. It’s been abandoned for years, and I am intrigued by the community of plants that is cropping up, even though the area is mainly concrete and I’m sure it’s probably contaminated. There has been buddleia here for ages, but this time I noticed a positive sea of red valerian, bristly ox-tongue and a number of small trees, including sycamore and birch.

I love it when nature starts to take over. I do wonder when someone will start to build here though – I’m not sure how long it’s been since the site was left empty, but probably getting on for ten years. Surely, with all the need for housing, something could be done? I hate to see a habitat destroyed, but better here than allotments or ancient woodland, or even a more established brownfield site.

Onwards!

Fast forward to Muswell Hill, which has some truly spectacular views towards East London – you can just about make out the Arcelor Mittal tower (otherwise known as the scary red helter-skelter) in the distance (to the left of the big tower in the middle of the photo)

And then I’m off to say hello to my favourite Smokebush, just off Fortis Green Road – what a magnificent plant this is, so fluffy and floriferous (try saying that after a gin and tonic)

We pass through a little alleyway where the bulging wall is festooned with clematis…

…admire the statue of the man with crutches in a front garden – I can find out nothing about this, so do chip in!

And then it’s off to Durham Road to admire the fuchsias. Last week I stopped to have a look at them, and to listen to the many, many bees who are gathering the nectar and pollen, when the owner of the house came past.

“Do you know the secret to growing these fuchsias?” he asked.

“No! Do tell”, I said.

“Complete neglect”, he said. “We don’t feed them. We don’t water them. And every year they get bigger and bigger”.

So there you go, fellow gardeners. Sometimes you just have to let well enough alone.

And as we got to the bottom of Huntingdon Road, I was delighted to see the Crape Myrtles in flower. There aren’t a lot of blooms, but these are very young trees, so I’m just delighted to see anything.

And how about this? These pods seem to indicate that this is a Judas tree, and very excited I shall be if it is.

And finally, here’s yet another fuchsia doing very well. I don’t have any fuchsias myself (though I am toying with the idea of trying out a Hawkshead one in the back garden), so I will be interested to know if any of you lovely gardeners are having an exceptional fuchsia year. Let me know!

First Barnwood Waterlily

Dear Readers, I’ve written about Barnwood before – it’s a tiny, tiny community orchard/garden just off East Finchley High Road, which punches way above its two-thirds of an acre size in terms of what it provides, both in terms of biodiversity and as a resource for the local community. I popped in today to say hello to my pal Leo, and to meet some of the Earthwatch team and volunteers who were holding an event there, especially the lovely Divya. And while I was there, I took a few photos to give you a taste of the place. Leo says that it’s probably the earliest he’s ever seen some of the plants fruit: the sloes are already bending the branches of the blackthorn.

The rowan is full of berries…

And there are blackberries everywhere.

It’s been a good year for field bindweed, the smaller, daintier species with the candy-striped flowers…

The teasel has already gone over, but hopefully the goldfinches will soon discover the seeds…

And the hawthorn is heavily-laden too.

Speckled Wood butterflies flitter about…

and I’m not one hundred percent sure who made this web, which completely encloses some nice ripe blackberries. Shame baby spiders don’t eat fruit! My guess would be that the web is from a nursery web spider, but I shall make enquiry.

And there’s a lot of this plant about at the moment, too: bristly oxtongue is definitely having a good time.

Although this is such a tiny space, the pathways take you into all sorts of hidden retreats and provide surprises around every corner.

I love Barnwood. It’s a tiny miracle, tucked away and yet beloved by those who live close by – many local residents have no garden, and this is a rare quiet haven. You can read more about Barnwood here.

Well, Readers, after an intense, challenging and fascinating day on my Living Well, Dying Well Foundation course this week, it felt important to get outside, walk and generally get back to whatever passes for normal these days. My morning pilates session made all the tensions and knots of the past few days very apparent – I don’t think I’d realised how hard, and yet how important, it was to re-visit those months, and weeks, and days, when Mum and Dad were dying. With the benefit of a bit of time, quite a few things have fallen into place, and it was the most extraordinary experience to be with a group of other people who were so open about their own time with those who were at the end of life, and to start contemplating my own demise. For one exercise, we started to think about what we would want for our own end of days, and what a gift it was to sit with one other person and to have the time and space, and structure, to think and talk about what was crucially important to us, what would matter finally.

One of the trainers referred to this Foundation course as a ‘citizenship course’ and she’s right – nobody teaches us about what happens at death, what our choices are, how to help to support someone and how many of the experiences that may perturb us are both common and important. Death is so medicalised and hidden away in Western culture, no wonder we’re so terrified of it. But having sat at a number of deathbeds, I can honestly say that an ‘ordinary’ expected death is nothing to be afraid of.

I’m sure I’ll have more to talk about as I process the last few days, but in the meantime I took a walk in Regent’s Park, and was delighted to see that the flowerbeds are an interesting combination of plants that are pollinator-friendly, and plants that are more typical bedding. The Royal Parks have a responsibility to look splendid for the many, many people who visit them, but they also seem to be trying to do their ‘bit’ for sustainability.

In the photo above, we have cosmos and verbena alongside what looks like a magenta petunia.

Sadly the cardoons have gone over, but these splendidly architectural plants are an absolute bee-magnet.

Here, we have what I think is Knautia, a great pollinator plant, with New Guinea Bizzy-Lizzies. Again, something for the bees, something that lasts and flowers for ages.

And some lovely Rudbeckia with a bright orange plant that looks as if it could be in the bindweed family.

But what is this?

It looks as if the poor old lion fountain has become unsafe, and nature is reclaiming it at a rate of knots, largely in the form of Canadian fleabane (Conyza canadensis). I imagine this will all be sorted out soon, but it was a bit of a shock to see something so unruly in the middle of the carefully manicured gardens. Nature will have its way, and sometimes it will do so in a surprisingly short time.

And just in case we wanted more evidence of nature taking advantage of every opportunity, what do we have here?

A thirsty crow is taking advantage of some running water, and on a hot day like today, who can blame them?

Furthermore, the crow seems to have food, which it’s dunking in the water to make it more palatable. What clever birds they are!

And then it was home, to put my feet up after 10,000 steps, and to get ready for a relatively peaceful weekend. Wishing the same for all of you.

Dear Readers, by the time you read this I will have been on the first part of the  Living Well, Dying Well Foundation course – I consider myself very lucky to have been advised, mentored and supported by the people at the care home where Mum and Dad passed away, and I’ve had a strong feeling that I’d like to be able to do something similar for others who are dying, or whose loved ones are dying.

I always thought that, as a society,  we don’t talk enough about death – Mum was always up for a conversation about it, which was so useful when we came to her last days and had to decide what kind of care she would like, and what she wanted for her funeral. Dad was more of a ‘put your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la’ kind of person, and so when he was dying I had to decide what he would have wanted – clearly not an ideal situation, but somehow we muddled through, even though it was at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

What my parents had done right was a) to have Powers of Attorney and wills in place, b) to have let me have access to all their financial details, so that I didn’t have to worry about where their bank accounts/insurance policies/savings accounts were, and c) to give me the phone numbers and email addresses for all their close friends and family. Such little things in one  way, but so important in others. I’m very aware that I’m not yet in the same situation – I do have a will, but the POAs that I’ve been trying to draft for my husband and I are somehow stalled at the solicitor (long story) so I need to summon up the energy to chase them up and finalise them.

But what seems so important  about the whole dying process is to know, in advance, what the  person involved values, what they need in order to allow them to pass peacefully, what their priorities are. I know that I would love some contact with nature, even if it’s just birdsong through a window, or the sight of a tree waving in the breeze. But for everyone it will be different, and I think our imagination sometimes fails when we’re under extreme  stress. How much better it is to think about it, and to talk about it, before things become a crisis, while we’re calm and the end of our days seems a long way away.

Anyhow, I am hoping that after 5 days of training, I will be in a better position to think about dying, and to know if I want to go to formally become what’s called a Death Doula – someone who helps others during the dying process, whether with emotional support, advocacy, or practical things. And although I won’t be able to write about the experiences of others on the course (because naturally these things are confidential), I will keep you posted about my thoughts once the course is over and I’ve processed what I’ve experienced. It will be an interesting and challenging few days, for sure.

Photo by Eugene Beckes https://www.flickr.com/photos/61210501@N04/6012925289/

Wedding Poem

By Ross Gay
for Keith and Jen

Friends I am here to modestly report
seeing in an orchard
in my town
a goldfinch kissing
a sunflower
again and again
dangling upside down
by its tiny claws
steadying itself by snapping open
like an old-timey fan
its wings
again and again,
until, swooning, it tumbled off
and swooped back to the very same perch,
where the sunflower curled its giant
swirling of seeds
around the bird and leaned back
to admire the soft wind
nudging the bird’s plumage,
and friends I could see
the points on the flower’s stately crown
soften and curl inward
as it almost indiscernibly lifted
the food of its body
to the bird’s nuzzling mouth
whose fervor
I could hear from
oh 20 or 30 feet away
and see from the tiny hulls
that sailed from their
good racket,
which good racket, I have to say
was making me blush,
and rock up on my tippy-toes,
and just barely purse my lips
with what I realize now
was being, simply, glad,
which such love,
if we let it,
makes us feel.

Stalked Jellyfish Depastrum cyathiforme (Illustration by marine biologist Philip Henry Gosse)

Aaargh! I accidentally posted this yesterday, so here it is again today…

Dear Readers, with species going extinct almost before we can put a name to them, it is such a pleasure to announce that a stalked jellyfish, thought to be extinct worldwide for the past 50 years, was rediscovered by amateur naturalist Neil Roberts back in 2023. The last time the jellyfish had been seen anywhere was in France in 1976, and the animal was last spotted in the UK on Lundy Island  in 1954.

Roberts was rockpooling in South Uist when he spotted what he describes as ‘a stalked jellyfish that I didn’t recognise’. He popped his newly-purchased camera into the water with ‘some trepidation’ (quite understandable) and took a few photos. These proved to be the first-ever photos taken of this particular species of stalked jellyfish. Jellyfish expert David Fenwick went back to the site this year, and found the species again, so it appears that there’s an established population in the Outer Hebrides.

What are stalked jellyfish, though? I must admit that I’d never heard of them. Like sea anemones, these jellyfish attach themselves to rock via a sucker, and then catch small crustaceans via the stinging cells in their short tentacles. This particular species is less than 5 cm tall, and has been described as ‘looking like a thistle’. You can see some of the photos taken in 2023 and 2025 here. The UK is a hotspot for stalked jellyfish (again, who knew?), and another species, the St John’s Jellyfish, is found only in the UK and Ireland.  In all, we host 10 out of the 50 known species of stalked jellyfish.

St John’s Jellyfish (Calvadosia cruxmelitensis ) Photo by David Fenwick Snr from https://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/detail/14

It appears that, like so many creatures, stalked jellyfish are particularly sensitive to water quality in general, and nutrient run-off in particular. With the waters around the far north of Scotland being some of the cleanest in the UK this may explain why these little creatures are hanging on in the Outer Hebrides, though it would be interesting to know if they’ve survived in other places but have just gone unnoticed. Their survival highlights the importance of Marine Conservation Areas, and also the importance of the amateur naturalist, who notices something unusual and takes the time and trouble to take a photo of it. One person’s curiosity, and attention to even the smallest ‘blobs of jelly’ in a rockpool, have given us all a bit of a lift. It will be interesting to know if more of this species now turn up in other locations, now that we know that looking for them isn’t a lost cause.

Highlands Giant Acrophylla stick insect (Acrophylla alta) Photo By Ross coupland – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=171201338

Goodness, Readers, clearly Bug Woman needs to head to Australia to check out the invertebrates, because this chunky stick insect is thought to be the heaviest insect in the country, weighing in at 44 grams, about as much as a golf ball. It can grow to about 40 cms long, and even has wings, though it’s thought that these are probably used to help the insect glide downwards rather than do anything more spectacular. Which is probably just as well, as being clunked on the head by a massive stick insect is probably one of the more colourful ways to get concussion.

You may wonder how such a huge insect has evaded scientists until this year, but the Highlands Giant Acrophylla is extremely well camouflaged, as you can see, and also lives in the Wet Rainforests of Queensland, described by New Scientist as ‘a true wilderness’ (and long may it remain so). Also, the insect is a canopy dweller, hanging around up to 60 metres above the ground, and it also lives only at altitudes above 900 metres. Scientists currently have no way of knowing how rare or common the insect is, because it’s so hard to survey the region.

This stick insect does remind me of one that I found in Cameroon though…I still have no idea of the species, but the finding of the Australian stick insect has made me want to find out more about this creature. iNaturalist has a stick insect group, so maybe I’ll wander over there….

Startling as they are, it’s worth remembering that stick insects are all harmless plant eaters, just trying to pass themselves off as leaves or sticks in the hope of being left alone. And furthermore (she says in a whisper) there are three wild stick insect species in the UK, in frost-free parts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. All of them are species from New Zealand, and are thought to have arrived as eggs in imported tree ferns – stick insects simply drop their eggs rather than laying them with any thought or consideration, slatterns that they are, and the eggs hid away in the crevices of the plants until they hatched and tiny stick insects emerged.

Once here, they set about making themselves at home and, as females are parthenogenic (can lay fertile eggs without needing a male) the populations have increased to a reasonable size, though there is no indication that they have caused any problems to plants. It was thought that all the insects in the UK were female, but then a lone male was discovered in 2018. Some of these populations have been here a very long time: the Prickly Stick Insect was discovered in Tresco Abbey Gardens in Cornwall in 1909, and the Smooth Stick insect in 1949, while the final arrival, the Unarmed Stick Insect (a name which begs a number of questions) was first seen, in Truro, in 1979. So it appears that Cornwall is the stick insect capital of the UK. Whether the insects will wander further as the climate warms is anybody’s guess.

Personally, I’m awaiting the arrival of the Praying Mantis, and possibly the Ant Lion. It’s only a matter of time….

Unarmed Stick Insect (Acanthoxyla inermis) Photo by By jacog – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/35254511, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78595029

Western Gull (Larus occidentalis)

Dear Readers, this has been a good week for news about animals, and I shall be sharing a few stories over the next few days. However, to kick off with, here’s a story that reaffirms what I always thought about gulls – they are a lot smarter than we think.

Back in 2018, researcher Scott Shaffer was working with Western Gulls on a rocky outcrop close to San Francisco. Western Gulls are very similar to our Herring Gulls, with, it appears, a similar eye for opportunity. The gulls were being fitted with GPS trackers, so that the scientist could monitor their feeding behaviour. Imagine his surprise when the data recorded that one particular female Western Gull had travelled at 60 miles per hour along a highway to a rubbish facility 80 miles away. Western Gulls can normally fly at about 20 miles per hour.

Detail from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-california-gull-hitched-a-ride-on-a-garbage-truck-and-took-an-80-mile-journey-to-a-compost-facility-then-it-happened-again-180986979/

Furthermore, a few days later the same gull made the same trip again.

Shaffer’s theory about what happened is  as follows. The gull was probably feeding on the food scraps contained in an 18 wheeler garbage truck, when she was inadvertently trapped beneath the netting that the workers throw over the back of the vehicle to stop the rubbish falling out. Off she went to gull heaven – a composting and recycling facility. She flew back home, and then, two days later, she voluntarily perched on another garbage truck and rode it all the way back to the composting facility.

Of course, there are still a lot of questions, because sadly we can’t ask the gull what she thought she was doing. However, my guess is that, having found the ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ when she originally rode a garbage truck by mistake, she was able to recognise the same kind of vehicle, and decided to see if this too would take her to a rich food source. Which it did.

I wonder if she’ll teach this behaviour to other gulls, and in particular to her children? It will be interesting to see if San Francisco garbage trucks become a kind of gull  bus service. I, for one, can’t wait to see what comes next. And how I’d love to have been in the lab when the data came in, showing that there were superspeed gulls out there. I imagine there was a lot of head scratching.

You can read the full story here.

Darwin’s Plant Carrier (Vasculum) from the Beagle

Dear Readers, on Thursday I popped to the British Library – I needed to renew my Readers’ Pass, following the massive cyberattack on the library last year, and I also wanted to see “Unearthed – The Power of Gardening” before it finishes on 10th August.

The Readers’ Pass must be one of the best bargains in London. All of those books and manuscripts (and sheet music) for free! No wonder there was a hefty queue. I always find the staff at the Library endlessly polite and patient, and there is also a rather fine new café which is always something of a draw.

New caff at the British Library

Anyhow, I was not just here for cake (a scurrilous rumour) and so off I went to the exhibition. As is usual at the British Library, there were many, many books, but also some things I didn’t expect, such as the vasculum that Charles Darwin had with him on the Beagle (vasculi were used to hold plant specimens). The exhibition had sections on medieval gardens, gardening for food, medicinal plants, community gardening, guerrilla gardening, plant collecting and colonialism, and gardening for pollinators, so when I came out my head was absolutely spinning. However, here are a few highlights.

The book above is the only known Anglo-Saxon herbal – it advises that chamomile is good for sore eyes (and indeed I’ve been known to use a cold chamomile teabag when my eyes have been playing up), but the plant on the left with a snake under it was known as ‘hart’s fern’, and was said to be good for snake bite.

This is the first known article on the poinsettia, that mainstay of Christmases everywhere….

Gertrude Jekyll’s gardening boots!

And above are Gertrude Jekyll’s gardening boots, looking suspiciously as if they may have been re-soled. I admire the hobnails, though.

The section on Gardens and Food had some splendid WWII posters…

…some photos of people from the UK’s many different communities working their allotments…

and this rather wonderful painting of the humble cabbage.

A Wardian case

The Victorians are responsible for introducing thousands of plant species to the UK, and many of them were carried here in Wardian cases, which acted as a kind of mini-greenhouse. In some cases, local people were recruited to help with the hunt for unusual and rare plants and were paid for their labour, but Sir John Sloane used to quiz slaves about the way in which various plants were used. Artists were taken on plant-hunting trips to illustrate the plants, and some of the illustrations are strikingly beautiful, such as the one of a rhododendron below. If the Victorians had known quite how invasive some species of rhododendron were going to turn out (not to mention Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and Himalayan balsam) maybe they’d have thought twice.

Some of the most interesting sections,  though, were where people were reasserting their power through gardening, whether by taking over land and planting  allotments, or guerrilla gardening. One project that particularly stood out for me was The Pansy Project. Artist Paul Harfleet has been planting pansies at sites of homophobic abuse since 2005, and has written a book, Pansy Boy, about bullying, and being different, and how the love of the natural world and of beauty can help.

So, I left the exhibition with my head spinning. There are so many things to think about here – after all, gardening has meant so many things to so many people. But what really came across was the way that growing plants is so often a force for good, be it through providing food or medicine, bringing people together, or broadening peoples’ horizons. It’s well worth a look if you’re in London, but hurry – it finishes next week.

https://events.bl.uk/exhibitions/unearthed-the-power-of-gardening