How to control aphids in your garden | Alys Fowler

Hoverfly larvae devour blackfly, so welcome them by planting the umbels they love

I’m not sure about your garden, but mine has been awash with blackfly (Aphis fabae) this year. They started on their namesake, the broad beans, hopped over the nasturtiums and are now having fun on the runner beans and numerous flowers, from chrysanthemums to dahlias. I’ve been patiently waiting for the ladybird larvae to deal with them, but they are late this year; I assume the wet winter decimated overwinter adults.

Thus my joy at finding hoverfly larvae hoovering up aphids is palpable. The larvae of the pretty, gossamer-winged hoverfly are a broad church of diners. Some like to eat plants and others are predatory, feeding on micromoth larvae, plant lice and scale insects. However, about 40% of the UK species (there are 165) like to eat a lot of aphids.

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Don't add water: be inspired to plant a beautiful dry garden

As temperatures rise, could gravel gardens, such as Derek Jarman’s pioneering creation in Dungeness, be the answer to long, dry spells?

In the summer of 1990, Britain’s two most influential gardeners, the late Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd, were picnicking on the sun-baked coast of Dungeness, when they stumbled into a garden. It had no boundary: wildflowers drifted in like flotsam from the tide, arranged enticingly around a tarred timber cottage in the company of shimmering helichrysum and cotton lavender. “I made a beeline for that colour,” Lloyd later reflected, and the two wandered through, elated, scribbling notes and marvelling at plants thriving in the scorched shingle. “How surprised we were when the door opened and Derek Jarman stepped out,” Lloyd wrote. The film-maker, who lived at Dungeness until his death in 1994, was equally surprised by his esteemed trespassers, and welcomed them into Prospect Cottage.

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What does a mortgage broker do? Nottingham Estate Agents

A mortgage broker can save you a lot of the time and stress involved in getting a mortgage. Here, independent mortgage broker John Charcol explains the value of a good broker. What is a mortgage broker? A mortgage broker, or adviser, is someone who holds their CeMAP and is therefore qualified to give financial advice […]

The post What does a mortgage broker do? appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

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Country diary: an endearing little scrap of life darts round the garden

Talsarnau, Gwynedd: His siblings have dispersed but this young robin remains, and is taking a keen interest in my compost heap

The young robin, speckled brown and bright of eye, perched on the fence by the compost heap. When I lifted a forkful, exposing a writhing knot of thin red worms, in a whirr of wings he darted down and with crammed beak retreated to his vantage point, dropping his dinner to foot level and pinioning it there with a long, elegant leg. He finished his repast, hopped a little closer, gave a quick wing-flutter, and peered intently down again, as though to direct my attention back to his source of food.

From a suitable distance and through a glass trained on the deep nest low down in a holly brake, I’ve been watching and whistling to this endearing little scrap of life – “pretty of note, colour and carriage”, as John Bunyan described the robin – since he and his four siblings chipped their way out of the egg a month ago. There followed a few days of brooding by the hen, with the cock flying daylong to and fro with a beak full of green caterpillars, which he’d give to his mate to feed the fledglings.

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Country diary: an endearing little scrap of life darts round the garden

Talsarnau, Gwynedd: His siblings have dispersed but this young robin remains, and is taking a keen interest in my compost heap

The young robin, speckled brown and bright of eye, perched on the fence by the compost heap. When I lifted a forkful, exposing a writhing knot of thin red worms, in a whirr of wings he darted down and with crammed beak retreated to his vantage point, dropping his dinner to foot level and pinioning it there with a long, elegant leg. He finished his repast, hopped a little closer, gave a quick wing-flutter, and peered intently down again, as though to direct my attention back to his source of food.

From a suitable distance and through a glass trained on the deep nest low down in a holly brake, I’ve been watching and whistling to this endearing little scrap of life – “pretty of note, colour and carriage”, as John Bunyan described the robin – since he and his four siblings chipped their way out of the egg a month ago. There followed a few days of brooding by the hen, with the cock flying daylong to and fro with a beak full of green caterpillars, which he’d give to his mate to feed the fledglings.

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More shortcomings of Robert Jenrick’s planning shake-up | Letters

Susan Roaf raises concerns about building in high-risk flood zones, Dr Leslie Jones addresses the lack of housing for rent, Kerry Thompson fears accessibility is being overlooked, while Catherine Dornan makes a case for truly affordable housing

At least slums are cheap to live in, and dry (England’s planning changes will create ‘generation of slums’, 5 August). Developers must now be licking their lips over Robert Jenrick’s planning shake-up as the gloves come off for new developments on flood plains.

As the Guardian has pointed out (Building new homes on land prone to flooding ‘making damage worse’, 25 February), between 2013 and 2018 over 84,000 homes were built in high-risk flood zones, one in 10 of all new homes in England. This green-light planning system will accelerate those figures.

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