The Woodlouse

03/05/2026

03/05/2026

Do you see em? The two ‘don’t look at us, we are just sticks!’?

Get up close & personal with yr plants 😁

20/04/2026

Perfection

15/04/2026

26 species of bird recorded on the Merlin app within half an our of arriving at yesterdays garden, amazing!

15/04/2026

Well, this garden owner is a keeper, what a spread! And the garden is a keeper too, 20+ bird species within half an hour of starting!

11/04/2026

Wood anemone, Anemone nemorosus, with ‘nemorosus’ meaning ‘of a wooded grove’, it’s so worth learning a bit of botanical Latin.

I love an understory flowering plant and we have many beauties of the deciduous woodland - wood sorrel, primrose, epimedium, Pulmonaria, Omphalodes verna, maianthemum bifolium, the Dicentra from my last post, and this one, the fairies hiding place.

Wood anemone is surely everyone’s favourite? Native white stars in the woods, wild flowers naturally turning bluer with age, though cultivars can have a lot more blue in them from the beginning - the garden owner of this long established patch commented that they start out white then change colour as they age.

For a mid-size, later flowering anemone with this colouring try Eriocapitella rivularis (aka A. rivularis and A. leveillei)

09/04/2026

Well hello small herbaceous Dicentra of the eastern or western United States, might I just say you are looking mighty fine with your bouncy feathery foliage & bonny pouched petals? Nice of you to join us this late spring.

Tell me, how different is the Cumbrian Atlantic Rainforest from your cool, temperate, wet, well drained forests on the other side of the pond? You seem very happy here and we are glad to welcome you to our shade-lovers club with our ferns, mosses, hostas & wood anemones 😍

18/03/2026

What happens when a plant becomes pot-bound? Eventually the roots strangle each other & the plant fails. Before planting, inspect the roots, tease them apart & if necessary cut them to prevent coiling. 👍

04/03/2026

Aw stoppit I’m blushing! Is it hug a gardener week or something?!
Hmm, this is something we should start 🤔 Ask nicely first!

03/03/2026

My beauties! Welcome spring. Lots of bees active today too 🥰