Most of us are now finely tuned to ‘wildlife gardening’ – a phrase that always makes me wince slightly, as it suggests a hierarchical notion of what is good and bad wildlife, and an unspoken predilection for cuteness in all things, but generally I am unapologetically selective about the creatures that I like to share my garden with.
It’s accepted by some that the really important cohabitors are bacteria, fungi, insects and micro-organisms, but their ‘Bambi’ rating is pretty low – necessary, but somewhere on the scale from nerdy to nasty. It’s also a given that hedgehogs, grass snakes, newts, frogs, dragonflies, butterflies, bats and bees can be brandished as trophies, bestowing a kind of virtue on the gardener whose territory they select. The same people will happily zap a…
