few April showers, but some May flowers

It's now late May and the wildlife garden is coming to life - most of it, anyway. A lot of the hawthorns in the "hedge" appear to have died. The spring has been dry, but most other things have pulled through, which makes me wonder if it was a dodgy batch - or perhaps hawthorns are just more vulnerable.

Apart from that, we have blackbirds nesting in the dense foliage of one of the lime pollards, and an interesting variety of annuals popping up in the sunnier ground at the front, including dovesfoot cranesbill and black medick. We're pulling out a lot of the mercury though, otherwise it'll just smother everything else.

Next goals are the logpile and habitat tower. The latter seem very trendy right now, even featuring at last week's Chelsea Flower Show, at Ark Design Management's Future Nature show garden (pictured). I don't think we'll be doing anything on quite that scale...