Sarah McLean-Barr RHS Freelance Gardener and Designer

26/05/2026

Don’t let the chemical businesses’ marketing literature and labelling convince you that glyphosate is not contributing to damaging the plants of the planet. Alternatives are available for all to use.

Don't forget to make your voice heard on the issue of pesticides!

Sign our petition and write to your MP to ensure you influence national policy on glyphosate and give them a mandate to act on your behalf.

Click here for a template letter for your MP: www.gardenorganic.org.uk/glyphosate-campaign and to take part in the petition.

**ds Pesticide Action Network UK

26/05/2026

Ground beetles are such an asset to any garden. They are part of team who keep it in good order.

The large black beetle you find under boards and mulch when cleaning the garden in spring is not a pest. It runs that fast because it is hunting.

Carabidae — the ground beetles — are the dominant nocturnal predators in the soil layer of every American garden. The largest and most useful species for vegetable growers are broad, flat, fast-moving beetles that can reach thumbnail size and spend every night moving through the top inch or two of soil.

What they hunt: slug eggs buried in the ground — the stage of the slug population that bait and pellets never reach. Also cutworm larvae, aphids, wireworms, and caterpillar pupae overwintering under debris. Some Pterostichus species add w**d seeds to this list, making a single beetle an active suppressor of next year's w**d bank at the same time.

What else they do: feed on decaying organic matter when live prey is scarce. Their consistent presence under mulch, flat stones, and along the base of raised beds — the places most gardeners clear out in early spring — is a reliable sign of a biologically active soil.

How to tell a ground beetle from a pest beetle — one criterion:

Shiny, dark metallic body, extremely fast on the ground, found under cover near the soil surface — never on plant foliage? That is a ground beetle. Leave it.

Dull or patterned, found on leaves or flowers, moving slowly? That requires a second look. Ground beetles do not feed on healthy plants.

For the curious: not all ground beetles hunt the same way. Some Scaphinotus and Spaeroderus species in North America have evolved elongated, curved mouthparts shaped specifically to dig snails and slugs out of their shells. They do not crack the casing. They reach inside through the opening. This has been happening across the gardens and woodland floors of this continent for millions of years, entirely unwitnessed.

The flat stone in the corner of the bed. The undisturbed patch of mulch along the raised bed wall. Those are hunting grounds. Leave them.

26/05/2026

Both of them totally relaxed in each others company. 💚

26/05/2026

Bird baths should be clean, hygiene is so important, shallow and easily identifiable.

You bought it, filled it, and waited. Three months later the only visitors are mosquitoes.

The bath is fine. Where you put it and how you maintain it is the problem 🌿

Most bird baths fail for the same few reasons, and none of them are obvious.

The biggest one is depth. Store-bought baths are almost always too deep. Songbirds can't swim. They need water shallow enough to wade into — an inch or two at most. Adding a few flat rocks gives smaller birds a place to stand and makes the bath usable for everything from warblers to robins.

Still water is the second invisible problem. Birds find water by sound. A silent basin in the yard is nearly invisible to them. A simple solar bubbler changes that overnight — and it solves the mosquito issue at the same time. Mosquitoes won't lay eggs in moving water.

🐦 Placement matters more than the bath itself:

- Full afternoon sun turns shallow water hot and green with algae within a couple of days. A spot with morning light and afternoon shade keeps water cool and fresh far longer

- Nearby shrubs or a low tree within easy flight distance give birds an escape route. Without that cover, most species won't risk landing on open water — they need somewhere to dart to if a hawk appears

- Change the water every day or two. Standing water spreads diseases that move through a flock fast. Fresh water breaks the cycle before anything harmful takes hold

One trip to the hardware store and ten minutes of adjusting fixes every one of these 🐦

26/05/2026

Places to go and lots to see, observe and listen too. 💚

26/05/2026

The better informed we are the better our understanding and hopefully the better decisions we make.

You grabbed the broom. Fifty teeth, mouth wide open, standing next to the recycling bin at midnight.

It wasn't threatening you. It was eating every tick in your yard.

That bluff is the only move it has — and it was doing more for your dog than you realized. 🐾

Swipe through and meet the best employee your yard ever had 🌿

26/05/2026

Bats - did you know ……. interesting

A bat's hunting route maps invisible trouble long before any leaf shows stress. When microclimate barriers shift—a treeline removed, wetland drained, wind pattern altered—insect populations don't just decline gradually. They collapse in specific zones first, creating gaps that only echolocation can detect in real-time. The bat adjusts its flight path within hours, abandoning previously rich feeding areas and clustering around the remaining insect hotspots. Growers who track these pattern changes gain a two-week advantage. When bats start avoiding certain field edges or concentrating over specific crop sections, it signals that plant stress will follow. The insects that pollinate, decompose organic matter, and maintain soil health are already gone. What looks like healthy farmland is about to shift. [6EWTE]

26/05/2026

Absolutely love lover in my lawn. Adds another dimension and the insects love this wonderful perennial.

White clover was removed from the definition of a desirable lawn plant in the 1950s — not because it was harmful, but because broadleaf herbicide companies needed it classified as a w**d so their products would treat it. Before that, clover seed was a standard ingredient in every American lawn mix.

Here is what clover actually does in your lawn:

It is a legume. Its roots host Rhizobium bacteria that pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it directly into the soil — continuously fertilising the surrounding grass for free. Lawns with clover require 25 percent less fertiliser to maintain the same colour and density.

It stays green through summer drought when grass browns, because its taproot reaches 10 inches — more than twice the depth of grass roots.

It blooms for several weeks, providing one of the most important nectar sources for honey bees, bumblebees, and solitary mason bees at the point in early summer when many other nectar sources are not yet available.

It coexists with grass — it does not take over or crowd it out.

Stop treating it. It is solving problems you are paying someone else to solve. 🌿