Loss of biodiversity from our gardens | Letters

Cherry Weston’s garden still attracts wildlife, while Nigel Mellor, Ian Duncan and Steve Brazier are missing worms, snails and birds. But Jane Moth may know where the bats are

I feel for readers who have been missing birds and bats in their gardens (Letters, 28 June). I can’t be sure of the reasons – climate change could, of course, be a factor – but I would like to ascribe the continued presence of both in my garden to the fact that I have never used chemical or other means to get rid of insects. My lack of gardening rigour has meant the garden is slightly messy, so various forms of wildlife have been able find places to live. A hedgehog, badger and fox have all been sighted, and we have often heard, although never seen, a tawny owl.
Cherry Weston
Wolverhampton

• Digging patches of my garden over the last few months, I haven’t seen a single worm. Seems odd.
Dr Nigel Mellor
Newcastle upon Tyne

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Loss of biodiversity from our gardens | Letters

Cherry Weston’s garden still attracts wildlife, while Nigel Mellor, Ian Duncan and Steve Brazier are missing worms, snails and birds. But Jane Moth may know where the bats are

I feel for readers who have been missing birds and bats in their gardens (Letters, 28 June). I can’t be sure of the reasons – climate change could, of course, be a factor – but I would like to ascribe the continued presence of both in my garden to the fact that I have never used chemical or other means to get rid of insects. My lack of gardening rigour has meant the garden is slightly messy, so various forms of wildlife have been able find places to live. A hedgehog, badger and fox have all been sighted, and we have often heard, although never seen, a tawny owl.
Cherry Weston
Wolverhampton

• Digging patches of my garden over the last few months, I haven’t seen a single worm. Seems odd.
Dr Nigel Mellor
Newcastle upon Tyne

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We reveal Wimbledon’s ace tennis homes for sale

If you love tennis, these are for you.

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My daughter-in-law wants to sell a standalone garage

Her mortgage lender is refusing to allow the sale. Is there anything she can do about it?

Q My daughter-in-law has been approached by her neighbour who would like to purchase her garage which is in a small compound. She asked her mortgage lender whether she could have the garage removed from the deed so she could sell it privately. They refused saying that the mortgage was granted on the whole property which includes the garage. The value of her home far exceeds what she owes. Is there anything she can do?
JL

A Unfortunately, if you have a mortgage on a property, you can’t sell part of it – whether that’s a garage or outhouse or part of the garden – without the consent of your lender. That’s because a lender has a charge over the whole of the property and if you were to sell off part of it, the lender would have to agree to release that part of the title to the property (what you call the deed) from the charge which is what they have as security for the mortgage loan.

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Firm accused of hiking rent of ex-crown estate home by 7% in a year

Jason Wright of Lincolnshire says Dorrington Residential raised rent well above inflation

• Crown estate faces tenants’ anger over rent hikes, evictions and repair delays

A crown estate tenant of more than 20 years has told how his family’s property was sold off to a private company that has since hiked the rent well above inflation.

Jason Wright, from Swaton in Lincolnshire, said he initially faced eviction from his house in 2014 but was given a reprieve when the crown estate confirmed he had an “assured tenancy”, which meant he could stay on despite its sale.

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House plants: the new bloom economy

Instagram-friendly and bursting with ‘wellbeing benefits’, pot plants are being repackaged and reinvented by smart online entrepreneurs. Alex Moshakis reports on a growing trend

In October last year, an American entrepreneur named Eliza Blank raised $5m in venture funding for the Sill, a New York brand described on its website as “A modern plant destination for the modern plant lover.” Blank established the Sill in 2012, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. “We want to make it fun and easy to own a plant!” she wrote then. It had not been fun and easy for Blank up to that point. Every time she moved from one city apartment to another, she would “try to integrate plants into my home,” she says, but, “I would just kill every single one of them.” She noticed friends facing similar struggles: they neither knew of convenient places to buy plants nor, crucially, how to look after them. Monsteras slowly dwindled; peace lilies faded to stem; fronds slumped to an unhappy limp… You couldn’t call it a bloodbath, really, but there was slaughter.

“Plants are assuredly good!” Blank says. But where to buy them in the city and how to become a dutiful plant parent? “I asked: ‘Why isn’t there a consumer brand that can elevate this to commodity status?’” She became frustrated at first, then excited, the way entrepreneurs do, I suppose, when landing on a new growth opportunity. She would sell plants online! Bird’s nest ferns. Cheese plants. Moss balls… then offer consumers helpful information about how to not kill them.

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Waterlilies: miracles that you can grow | James Wong

Long thought to be impossible, a hardy lavender waterlily was gardening’s holy grail – until 2007...

In the cosy world of gardening, it’s rare something comes along that changes everything. But for lovers of water plants, in the summer of 2007 a Thai farmer would overturn almost 100 years of entrenched dogma with a creation that many thought impossible: a hardy blue waterlily.

With their flawless translucent petals, waterlilies are among the most beautiful of all garden plants. Yet their quirky genetics mean that, unlike most garden favourites, this genus eluded the endeavours of plant breeders until just over a century ago. Right up to the late 1800s the only waterlily available to European gardeners was the white native form. Then a French horticultural genius called Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac cracked a hybridising technique whose results dramatically expanded the options available by mixing in the genes of waterlily species from North America. Pinks, yellows, oranges and reds were the result. It was his waterlilies that inspired Monet, resulting in an explosion in the plant’s popularity.

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