Bees
Leave your leaves (oct25)
Do you love a tidy garden? Your wildlife doesn’t. 🍂 Do you sweep up your leaves or blow them away?
25 October 2025
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I started wilding at my home in West Dorset in 2020 during lock-down. It has been a revelation. We removed fences, dug ponds, made mounds, planted trees and created a wild-flower meadow. It didn’t take long before the wildlife noticed the difference. We have barn owls, bats, many bee species, birds of prey and many other things not beginning with ‘B’! You’ll see from the posts below that there are many schools of thought about what is wilding and what we should be doing. I’ve learnt a lot from the wonderful Isabella Tree, whom I was lucky enough to interview in 2023.
Do you love a tidy garden? Your wildlife doesn’t. 🍂 Do you sweep up your leaves or blow them away?
We’ll soon have a new Archbishop of Canterbury. Normally, this would pass me by — I’m an atheist and not
This deer is looking a lot perkier than the one we found…. The faun was squealing in pain and distress
Bugs are back – let’s fight to save them… Our garden is humming and buzzing with life this year –
Have you ever seen a hedgehog, a hare or a barn owl? Heard the song of a nightingale or the
René Haller transformed a lifeless quarry into a vibrant, flourishing ecosystem. This blog explores his groundbreaking work on the Kenyan
What possible reason could there be for the BBC totally ignoring up to 100,000 nature protestors yesterday? The ‘Restore Nature
Full steam ahead for our third Wilding Weekend. It will be on 15th and 16th June in sunny West Dorset,
Full steam ahead for our third Wilding Weekend. It will be on 15th and 16th June in sunny West Dorset,
Are fires the best way of getting rid of garden waste or clearing landscapes? I believe that the answer is
The Electric Palace in Bridport was packed. The Bridport Literary Festival or Bridlit had managed to get Isabella Tree to come and
Our scything day was joyous. Watching the scythers sweep through the grass was a totally different experience from using a
Watch the video of our Wilding Weekend, held in June 2023 – including interviews of the key players.
It was tremendously exciting to get such positive feedback from visitors to our Wilding Weekend – some were ecstatic. It
During the weekend there will be guided tours, talks, exhibitors and stalls with information and advice about wilding, as well
I loved being described as ‘probably the most effective person you’ve never heard of’! I wondered if it was too
We cycled for over 100 miles and didn’t go through a gate. The Transylvanian landscape was without fences, hedges, or
A flock of sheep will eat pretty well everything in their path – wildflowers, buds, saplings and anything else that
On 17th and 18th June 2023, my husband Jamie Macdonald and I will be hosting the second Wilding Weekend at
I’m going to be speaking about Wilding at Slader’s Yard, West Bay (near Bridport) on 29th March, 2023. The evening
We organised the very first Wilding Weekend in June 2022, at our home in West Dorset. It was also the
Come to our next Wilding Weekend on 17th and 18th June 2023. We’ll be opening our garden and land through
When I tell people about my mother’s coffin, the most common response is ‘what’s mycelium?’. The answer is that it’s