Mushrooms like growing in damp, mulchy ground so now is the perfect time of year to go looking for them (particularly if it’s just rained). From golden-gilled bolete to olive earthtongue to beechwood sickener, their names could have been lifted straight out of a Roald Dahl story. There are as many as 3.8 million fungal…
Making chutney is not the preserve of country bumpkins – 19th October
The courgette and tomato plants on my balcony garden are looking waif-like as another summer fades away. The resident squirrel and blackbird haven’t been seen in weeks and slugs are taking over. My patch of green is just one of 3.8 million individual gardens in London, probably all feeling a bit dour at this time of…
London’s falling leaves – 5th October
London is currently in the cradle of autumn. My cycle to work is flecked with crispy leaves and in polite conversations people find comfort in talking about how it’s ‘suddenly got colder’. Some trees succumb to the cold faster than others and have already bloomed into a rainbow of reds, oranges, pinks and yellows. Some…
Lunchtime trip to a pocket garden – 28th September
On Wednesday lunchtime I hopped on my bicycle and sped off along High Street Kensington on a mini-trip to a Japanese garden in Holland Park. My aim was to milk as much out of my hour off as possible. The 22-hectare park originally belonged to Sir Walter Cope who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for…
Blackberry picking – 21st September
Leaves from London plane trees are curling up like brandy snaps on the pavement. This is the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness/ Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun’, as Keats wrote. Last weekend I went home to my parents’ farm in Kent. Thorny and unfriendly-looking hedgerows were jewelled with blackberries, attracting people, birds and a…
An ode to dead grasses in London parks – 17th August
For the past few months I’ve been yoyoing up and down London’s parks trying to get fit for the triathlon.Visitors to these Royal parks might expect them to be dominated by organised beds of plants but off the beaten track they are home to swathes of long grasses dotted with wild flowers. Most green spaces…
The anniversary of London’s oldest meat market – 7th September
I live by Smithfield Meat Market and this year it is celebrating its 150-year anniversary. Animals have been traded and slaughtered on this spot for nearly 1,000 years. I’m writing about this market because it would have been one of the most wild and savage places in London. In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist (written in…
Walthamstow Wetlands
We’re on a train heading towards Stansted looking to spot long-haul flyers who use this part of London to refuel. Not Easy Jet customers but sandpipers, redshank and lapwings. We’re visiting Walthamstow Wetlands which is a ten minute walk from Tottenham Hale tube and home to an amazing array of migratory birds. One of these…
Hunting for the London Rocket – 31st August
At the weekend I listened to an April episode of WildFlower Half Hour by Isabel Hardman, Assistant Editor of The Spectator. She was talking to London-based forensic botanist Dr Mark Spencer about the capital’s strange collection of non-native plants brought in from all four corners of the Earth. Living alongside these exotic new-comers is one…
Heathrow’s hidden wildlife wonders – 24th August
Sixty-five million people pass through Heathrow each year. It’s home to sections of the M25, M4, long-stay car parks and towering hotel blocks where people stay when they would rather be elsewhere. Naturally it’s not a typical spot for a walk. However, an absent-minded friend of mine arrived a day early for her flight last…
Rewilding London 