Jo's Little Plant Nursery

06/06/2026

Don't forget we are opening until 5pm this weekend. It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow although it turned out nice today after all.

30/05/2026

What's in flower at the moment?

30/05/2026

I'm sitting outside, having my breakfast to a chorus of buzzing bees in the campanula. Perfect 😊

28/05/2026

WE ARE OPEN AGAIN THIS WEEKEND!!!!!! There are loads of plants in the nursery and you can have a stroll round the garden too and see how they grow. FREE entry.

07/05/2026

...and my hubby wonders why I create wood piles!

A branch fell in the garden. You were about to take it to the tip.

Here is what it is in the process of becoming.

Month 1 — It has just fallen. You see it as something to clear.

Year 1 — Fungi colonise the exposed wood. Bracket fungi appear on the bark — polypores that break down lignin and cellulose. The wood begins to soften. The fungal mycelium extends into the surrounding soil, connecting the decomposing wood to the root systems of nearby plants.

Year 3 — Saproxylic beetle larvae tunnel through the softened wood. Stag beetle and lesser stag beetle larvae, along with the larvae of dozens of other wood-boring species, spend years inside the log. The great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major: black and white plumage, vivid red nape patch) begins visiting to extract larvae. The wood is further opened and aerated.

Year 5 — A slow worm (Anguis fragilis) settles beneath the log — it is dry, sheltered, and surrounded by the woodlice, mites, and springtails it hunts. A common toad (Bufo bufo) may use the same space through the day, emerging to hunt after dark. Both are fully protected British species.

Year 10 — The branch has become humus. The fungi, the beetles, the woodpecker, the slow worm — they have transformed one piece of wood into nutrients that feed the soil around the tree. What was an encumbrance is now part of the soil.

If it does not block a path, leave it. The fungi colonising it are not a disease — they are decomposers doing exactly what the ecosystem requires. A single fallen branch can support more than 30 species over its lifetime. 🪵🌿🐛🌍

04/05/2026

Last day for now to come and see my garden and plant nursery. I will be opening every few weeks at the weekend. Watch this space...

30/04/2026

2 more days and my garden and little nursery will be open for 3 afternoons 1-4pm. Come and enjoy a stroll round. The Honesty plants have gone mad this year!

29/04/2026

1 more day after today and the little nursery will be open for 3 afternoons from 1pm to 4pm. Come and have a look round the garden AND the nursery for free!

26/04/2026

I am not a w**d. I am not invasive. I am not ruining your lawn.

That low green carpet spreading between your grass blades. The tiny white flowers you've been mowing off for years. The patch your neighbor sprays every spring.

I am white clover. And your lawn isn't losing a battle. It's being fed for free.

White clover is a legume. My roots host bacteria in small nodules that pull nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form grass roots can absorb. I fertilize the lawn I'm growing in. The nitrogen I provide releases slowly and doesn't wash into storm drains the way synthetic fertilizer can.

Until the late 1950s, clover was a standard ingredient in American lawn seed mixes. It was sold as a feature. The plant didn't change. The expectations did.

I stay green through summer drought when grass goes brown. My roots reach deeper than most turf grasses, finding water they can't access. A lawn with clover mixed through it holds color in dry stretches without extra watering.

I flower for several weeks in late spring and early summer, and those flowers support honey bees, bumble bees, and native solitary bees during the window when other nectar sources are thinnest. A lawn with clover feeds pollinators without the homeowner doing anything except letting it bloom.

I'm not taking over. Clover fills the thin spots, the compacted zones, the shady edges where grass struggles. Where grass is thick, I stay minor. The patches you see are a map of where the soil needs help — and I'm the repair, not the invasion.

🌿 What to do about clover in your lawn:

- Nothing. Leave it. A lawn with clover mixed in is greener, more drought-resistant, and cheaper to maintain than pure grass

- If you're overseeding bare patches, add micro-clover or Dutch white clover seed to the grass mix — it fills in faster than grass alone and protects the soil while seedlings establish

- Raise your mower blade to three inches or higher. Clover handles this well, and taller grass shades out the w**ds you actually don't want

- Skip broadleaf herbicide on a clover lawn — it removes the clover, leaves bare soil, and bare soil is what crabgrass moves into next

- If bees visiting the flowers concern anyone walking barefoot, mow a path through the clover section before you walk it — the flowers regrow within a week

The lawn you're trying to build with fertilizer and chemicals is the one clover gives you for free 🌿

24/04/2026

Starts on Saturday for 3 afternoons....