Now that November is upon us, the Gardens have started their winter semi-hibernation, open only Thursday to Saturday, time for them to recover from the exuberances of summer. But at least they can still be visited to bring the joys of nature into our lives, and for half-price to boot …

The summer’s growth is starting to be recycled into next year’s growth …

… but the flowers are not yet done. Especially pinks and purples blend well into the message of autumn, and at least on sunny days they are still drawing in insects.

Even earlier this week when the day was grey, the air moist but still, there were Honeybees and a few bumblebees visiting the ever-reliable spikes of Bistorta amplexicaulis: there is no better plant in the gardens to feed these and many others. And no doubt, if the sun should ever come out again (it has been a grey week, not good for anyone prone to the wintertime blues) there would be a whole lot more, at least until the advent of the first frosts.

Cooler air means that the insects, if you find them, are less flighty and easier to see in close up. One such on my visit was this was a Twin-spot Centurion, our largest and latest of this group of soldier-flies, with distinctive orange legs and a pair of white spots above the antennal bases. This was my first record, not only for the garden, but anywhere: it is widespread in Essex, but records are rather thinly scattered especially in the north of the county – it may owe some of its apparent scarcity to its typically late-season emergence.

Berries and seeds, food for birds in particular, were also much in evidence: sprinkles of colour on the bushes, architectural forms rising from the beds and grass-heads exploding like fireworks from their tussocky bases:

And then of course the leaves – such a rapid colour change, fewer than two weeks since my last visit, signifying ‘peak autumn’.

And without any recent strong winds, the fallen cover the ground, plants and water like gentle foliar confetti, destined to become a deluge when this unusually calm spell gives way to winter proper.

But for now, there is still time to visit and see the garden in its full autumnal splendour! For details see Explore Our Gardens – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens.

October, the month when the low-angled sun sends shafts of dappled light through the garden, illuminating a scene of nature starting to bed in for the winter. This month I am fortunate to have had excuses to go there on four or five occasions, almost all of them under blue skies and in sometimes unseasonable, unreasonable warmth…

It was the month that started green …

… developed russet and orange tints …

… until now when whole swathes are alight with the glow of autumn flames.

Misty mornings add their own veil of mystery, leaving evidence of their passing in the form of dewdrop diamonds adorning flowers, foliage and silken webs alike.

The process of autumnal change is both intrinsic and extrinsic, senescence with an added splash of leaf-miners, sprouting galls and sporing microfungi …

And then there are the macrofungi, this autumn being one of the best I have seen for them in the garden, including my first record of Fly Agarics fruiting under the Silver Birches:

Fungi are one of the main groups of decay organisms, adding to that overlooked but vital virtuous circle of ‘life → death → decay → renewed life’, hopefully cycling ad infinitum. But the initial part of decay is down as much to the chompers as the rotters, and for the first time we had a look for some of those by scrabbling around in leaf-litter and under logs. Here are just a few representatives of that rich ecosystem of detritivores (and their predators!), from worms, woodlice, harvestmen and springtails to beetle larvae, spiders and centipedes.

Autumn is also a time of bounty, with plants in fruit all around the garden. From grassheads glinting gold in the sidelight to swelling capsules of Agapanthus…

… and of course the burgeoning berries in a kaleidoscope of colours, each food for someone, reassurance that if we ever get a hard winter again, Nature will provide.

While floral displays are fading, they are still there and providing, especially Hylotelephium and Crocus for bumblebees, Bistorta and Verbena for Honeybees, social wasps and pretty much everything.

Dragonflies and damselflies, the true spirits of High Summer, have still been flying throughout the month, mostly Willow Emeralds (more than I have ever seen before) and Common Darters, with a few Migrant Hawkers to mid-month. Assuming we don’t get early frosts, we can look forward to the first two species well into November, maybe beyond.

A selection of the leaf-feeders during the month includes a Grey Dagger moth caterpillar, a Hairy Shield-bug and most surprisingly a Gorse Shield-bug, the first time I have ever found it in our garden. We don’t have much Gorse, and this species has a very close relationship with that food-plant – although remarkably that particular specimen was actually on Euphorbia!

And yes there have still been butterflies around, reflecting the fact that the previous month saw the greatest number of butterflies for the whole of this poor summer. I saw a total of six species during the month: most numerous were Red Admirals, looking increasingly battered and presumably individuals that had ‘opted’ not to join the record-breaking southward migration in September.

Commas too were numerous, including the one casting a very appropriate shadow for Halloween on the wall of Beth’s House!

Birds don’t often feature highly in my walks around the garden given the number of human visitors, but at migration times they can be numerous flying over, this month Swallows and Skylarks in particular. And it has been a long time since I recorded three new species for me in the gardens in one month. Two were perhaps not unexpected, a pair of Red-legged Partridges wandering in from surrounding fields, and a Grey Wagtail that dropped in on migration. But the third was a real delight, a Nuthatch calling loudly from either side of the Reservoir Garden on one visit; although not uncommon across much of the country, it is very scarce, indeed largely absent, on the Tendring Peninsula, east of Colchester. So a month of colour, a month of delights, and a month of new things for the Beth Chatto Gardens, our incidental nature reserve!

My final Wandering Naturalist events of the summer were bizarrely on one of the warmer days of the summer, despite the equinox fast approaching; around 45 visitors over the two walks went away (hopefully) satisfied!

Not only warm, but as busy as I have seen it all year both for people and for butterflies. The latter were mostly Large and Small Whites, with a very few Speckled Woods, Red Admirals and Commas.

The butterflies mostly favoured Verbena bonariensis, which also fed many a bumblebee…

Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters provided flashes of dragonfly colour, with Willow Emerald damselflies more unobtrusive but still stunning in the right light.

A pollen and nectar powerhouse for the past six weeks, Bistorta amplexicaulis in all its varieties was still going strong, albeit slightly past its best but still drawing in social wasps, Honeybees and a host of other insects such as Dock Bugs.

But as summer blooms fade, so the stars of autumn assert themselves, especially Hylotelephium iceplants and Symphyotrichum Michaelmas-daisies, both genera with unfamiliar names (Sedum and Aster, respectively, until recent genetic analysis) and both hugely attractive to flies and bees.

And of course there were still plenty of other nectar and pollen sources, despite the unpredictable weather of summer …

… including just a few bits of flowering Ivy. This is the last great floral bonanza of the British landscape, and plays a similarly key role in gardens, even given the availability of other nectar and pollen resources. Here it is attracting Graphomya maculata, a rather sparsely distributed  relative of the House Fly in north Essex.

Several of the beds were swarming with Turnip Sawflies, actually a type of wasp, more numerous than I have ever seen before…

… and a final selection of flies completes the insect story.

Two however deserve special mention because of their scarcity: Ptychoptera contaminata is a wetland crane-fly which on the maps on the Essex Field Club website has only a dozen or so localities in the northern half of the county, and the snipe-fly Chrysopilus laetus has only one dot in the whole of Essex (and I know there have been more records than that, as I found it in Hockley Woods near Southend a couple of years ago, a spot that hasn’t found its way onto the map).

It’s autumn. Robins singing wistfully, Buzzards mewling overhead, greenscapes being transformed slowly, or indeed rather quickly in the case of Amelanchier, always the harbinger of autumnal russets.

And yes, it is time too for fruits and seeds. Most berries were still ripening, fruiting grasses were taking centre-stage, and ivory-white nutlets of Purple Gromwell added a touch of the exotic to birdfood-fest to come.

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I hope that Meet the Wandering Naturalist will be returning next summer.I do have a couple of walks this autumn, but they are special events for Friends of the Garden. If that might tempt to join, you can find full details here! Membership & Vouchers – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist events this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring | Chris Gibson Wildlife

June: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: is summer finally here? | Chris Gibson Wildlife

July:  The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: focus shifts to the ponds | Chris Gibson Wildlife

August: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: Summer peaks, Autumn approaches… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

My two August Wandering Naturalist events around the Beth Chatto Gardens were at the start and in the middle of the month, and on both we we were blessed with hot, sunny and still weather. In total around 30 customers took the opportunity to be shown the wildlife with which we share the garden.

Of course in practice ‘the wildlife’ means the insects – while birds are always there, apart from Moorhen chicks, those in the garden tend to hide away when the gardens are open. But Chiffchaffs, Goldcrests and Robins were singing, with Swallows migrating overhead, and the local Buzzards mewling around.

The two week period covered by this blog saw the summer peak and start to fade: aside from a 12mm downpour the night before the second set of walks there was no rain, and both day and night temperatures were very high. By mid-August, the garden and its wildlife were flagging – Verbena, Buddleja, Origanum and Eryngium were over in a flash…

… while the daisy family was starting to assert its autumnal supremacy, along with the absolute stars of the show, the various Bistorta amplexicaulis forms which were simply humming with Honeybees, social wasps and patrolling Hornets ….

… and Hylotelephium ice-plants just starting to make their presence felt.

Whilst it was possible to record up to ten species of butterfly a day, none were in large numbers, as has been typical of so many places this year.

And indeed very much the same could be said for all bees, hoverflies and other pollinators: more than anywhere else locally, but fewer than there should be.

Plenty of activity round the Water Garden though, with half a dozen species of dragonfly (including Ruddy Darter) and four damselflies, most numerously the relatively newly arrived Willow Emerald, the one that is likely to persist deep into autumn.

All around the garden, away from the flowers, there were insects basking or, when it was too hot, sheltering:

And a final selection of goodies included White Crab-spider, Bee-wolf and Hornet Hoverfly.

Even the busiest areas added interest to our walks, with the bee hotel by the tea room a focus for activity, and in the nursery one group was lucky enough to be shown a large Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar, probably heading to pupation after munching its fill of evening-primroses!

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) for a final time this summer on September 20th. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre. For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring | Chris Gibson Wildlife

June: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: is summer finally here? | Chris Gibson Wildlife

July:  The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: focus shifts to the ponds | Chris Gibson Wildlife

It was a lovely hot and sunny day for my July Wandering Naturalist event around the Beth Chatto Gardens. Perhaps to be expected, the sudden intense heat meant that although there were lots of visitors, they were mostly interested in sitting in the shade looking at the garden, rather than being shown insects and other wildlife. And who can blame them?!

Nevertheless, enough people were happy to be dragged around by me to make it worthwhile. In common with the whole of this summer so far, there were fewer insects than expected for the season; notably the two Buddleia, davidii and crispa, next to Beth’s house were pretty much devoid of butterflies and bees, in complete contrast to the equivalent time last year.

But true to form, I saw more insects around the garden than I have anywhere else in north Essex over the past month, testament to the pulling power of a well-planted, large ecological garden.

There were the first tentative signs that at long last insect populations are starting to take off. Ten butterfly species. Including freshly emerged, second brood Painted Lady, Brimstone, Comma and Holly Blue, plus Large Skipper and Speckled Wood is something of a return to form in species richness, if not abundance.

Sea-hollies Eryngium in all their wonderful variety are without exception great plants for pollinators such as bees, hoverflies and beetles. Now starting to attract as the flowers open, these are destined to be a major part of the garden menu for the next month, alongside the larger daisies which too are just starting to reveal their wares…

But it was the dragonflies that were the stars of the show this week. Still plenty of damselflies, including Blue-tailed and Common Blue…

… several Brown Hawkers were sweeping over the ponds on tawny-suffused wings…

.. and the Common Darters that have been around for three weeks or so were supplemented, and outnumbered, by a wave of Ruddy Darters, fresh out and flycatching furiously.

To walk around the ponds, watching the activity, the Flowering-rush and Pickerelweed in full bloom, was simply sublime.

Elsewhere in the garden, other insects included Common Scorpionfly, Harlequin Ladybird and several hawking Hornets. But surprisingly, given their abundance nearby over the previous two days, there were no flying ants,  although the Swallows twittering overhead suggested they may have been up there. Buzzards were also noisy overhead, as a Chiffchaff continued in song, a couple of Song Thrushes fed safely away from the slug-killing fields of modern agriculture, and I watched a Grey Heron fishing (successfully) in the Reservoir.

The full riches of summer may yet be to come. And there are certainly a richness of flowers to cater for their needs if they do. My next walk might hopefully see them providing for more insects.

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre. For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring | Chris Gibson Wildlife

June: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: is summer finally here? | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Our first moth event of the year a month ago was an eye-opener in this summer of few insects – a surprisingly large haul of moths caught (and released). For our second course yesterday, our hopes were even higher, being deeper into the mothy time of year, following several very hot days and the night itself forecast to be one of the warmest of the year, with increasing cloud cover, and temperatures not expected to fall below 20°C: pretty much perfect conditions.

And so it proved, a bumper haul of 60 macromoth species (plus another 10 or so micros), totalling perhaps 400 individual moths. Our small group of customers, and the handful of interested passers-by as we released the catch were treated to a wide variety of the night life of the garden.

For smaller hands at least the big game proves the most interesting, and today’s stars included three types of Hawk-moth (Poplar and Small Elephant, together with an old and faded Elephant, conceivably one of the fresh emergees we caught last month), a couple of furry Oak Eggars and the large, emerald Large Emerald.

Moving down a little in size, but keeping the intense colours going, there were lots of Rosy Footmen, a few Canary-shouldered Thorns and a single Green Silver-lines.

Black Arches are always a delight, all charcoal scrawls and remarkable antennae, the latter feature also shared by the Vapourer Moth:

Three species of Prominent graced the trap and the willing hands and clothes of the onlookers: Iron, Pebble and Swallow Prominents.

The list goes on, and even the brown and less showy species have plenty to say about the value of camouflage: Blood-vein, Latticed Heath, Scalloped Oak, Oak Hook-tip, Poplar Grey and Nut-tree Tussock.

While most of our captures were of widespread and common species, there were some less frequent ones. The Festoon is no doubt living in the ancient oaks that run alongside the trap site, but it is both nationally scarce and included in the Essex county Red Data List.

A final selection of macromoths includes three of my favourites. Buff Arches might sound plain but in reality it is like no other, almost shell-like in texture; and then you have those moths that are nothing more than animated birch twig (Buff Tip) and bird poo (Chinese Character)!

And that is just the macromoths: there was a variety of micros, although as so often, insufficient time to look at them closely – here are Elder Pearl and Eudemis profundana.

And moths are not the only things that come to moth traps. Our haul included the small Birch Shield-bug (not a common species in this part of Essex and I think the first record for the garden) and the attractive green planthopper Iassus lanio.

Another attraction for our customers on these events is that they get access before anyone else is there. First thing, the gardens are truly sublime: the only sounds are birdsong and the rustle of a dragonfly’s wings, the only feeling pure joy…

And our potter around gave us chance to look at insects going about their daily business. Common Darter dragonflies and Willow Emerald damselflies were among the pondside foliage, early butterflies included Gatekeeper, and this lovely hoverfly Chrysotoxum festivum showed itself to advantage before it had warmed up enough for its daily rounds of the flower beds.

If you are interested in such events, please keep an eye on the Beth Chatto website for similar events next spring and summer. These are run by and in support of the Beth Chatto Education Trust, established by Beth to carry forward her passion for plants and the ecological approach to all.

In response to the question posed in the title, the answer is ‘it blooming well should be!’ as my latest Wandering Naturalist walks in the gardens were on the summer solstice. And what a day to be there! Azure skies, almost windless, hot sunshine almost for the first time this year. The fourteen visitors who joined me were treated to a lush garden, reflecting the spring rains, but sadly few high summer insects: the lack of warm sun thus far has delayed the emergence of many. Hopefully another few days of this will sweep away fears of a Silent Summer.

Butterflies were notable by their near absence, though that is not atypical of the ‘June Gap’: just five species with no more than ten individual of all species put together. Holly Blues amounted to four of those. Day-flying moths were similarly sparse, with just one Gold-barred Longhorn and a couple of Mint Moths. And remarkably just a single dragonfly (a newly-emerged Common Darter), while shield bugs and their relatives were represented only by two Hairy Shield-bugs and a few Dock Bugs, mostly doing what comes naturally!

Honeybee and bumblebee numbers were moderately high, especially visiting Cistus, Knautia/Scabiosa and Veronicastrum, together with Opium Poppies which this year are providing such a spectacle in the Reservoir Garden:

Especially by the ponds, but spreading round the whole garden, damselflies were everywhere: four species, mainly Azure (with my first Common Blue of the summer), plus Large Red and Blue-tailed, including several examples of the very attractive rufescens form.

Although there has not yet been the summer influx of hoverflies from the Continent, numbers are growing, both of the Drone-flies, Batman Hoverflies and others we have been seeing all spring …

… plus a few others  including Chrysotoxum festivum, Xanthogramma pedissequum and Anasimyia contracta, the latter a fly of water margins and very scarce in north Essex.

Another remarkable hoverfly was the Narcissus Bulb-fly Merodon equestris, one that occurs in several colour forms, each of which are mimics of different bumblebee species.

Other flies included a mating pair of Gargoyle Flies, at least that’s what we call them, we think for very good reason!

A final selection of today’s insects includes Thick-thighed Beetle, a click-beetle with a couple of passenger mites, the hairy beetle Lagria hirta, and a few tiny nymphal Speckled Bush-crickets.

There are no doubt lots more to come, and the good news for them is that that there are absolutely masses of nectar and pollen resources awaiting their emergence or arrival.

Having given the gloom and doom messages, I should point out that compared with everywhere else in north Essex I have ventured recently, Beth Chatto Gardens are clearly richer in insect life, a bioabundance driven by the provision of nectar and pollen sources from all round the world and not compromised by the application of pesticides and herbicides.

By way of showing all visitors our ‘live and let live’ organic credentials, there were caterpillars munching unmolested. Our mulliens are covered in holes made by Mullein Moth caterpillars and irises sculpted by Iris Sawfly larvae, while the Martagon Lilies that have had their leaves stripped by Lily Beetles are still flowering happily.

Star turn though among the insects for both walks was a bronzed green, metallic Rose Chafer that remained munching the Corky-fruited Water-dropwort flowers all day. The Colchester area is one of the heartlands nationally for this magnificent beast, and we are so lucky to share our garden with it.

One final highlight was the living roof on the bike-shed, designed and installed by our friend John Little. Never has it looked better, and the solitary bees are making full use of the nesting holes created for them as part of the structure.

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre. For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the height of Spring | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Our hopes for the moth event at the solstice were not high given the general dearth of insects hitherto this spring. However the first garden moth event of the year was blessed with perfect weather conditions, a hot but cloudy and humid night with little wind, preceded by a very hot and sunny day or two. The garden really lived up to what I always say about it: as rich in insect species as any nature reserve hereabouts.

52 species of macromoths and more than a dozen micros (just the ones we had time to identify) amounted to very respectable 200 or so individual moths to entertain and educate our select group of customers. Any night when you catch four types of hawk moth, everyone’s favourites because of their size and/or colour and as they are generally very docile, very amenable to handling, has got to be a good night. Especially when these include two of the larger Hawk-moths (Poplar and Pine) and the two most beautiful (Elephant and Small Elephant).

At least 20 Buff-tips, living ‘broken birch twigs’ was an impressive total, indicating a recent coordinated emergence, a good idea if you want to find a mate:

Large yellowish species included  Swallow-tailed Moth and Ghost Moth…

… while a little smaller but in the same suite of colours were Buff Ermine, Barred Yellow, Common Footman and Barred Straw (with its characteristic bottom-up posture).

Such fascinating moths, with often entrancing names: how about Nut-tree Tussock and Pebble Hook-tip, both exceptionally well camouflaged against bark and similar backgrounds.

Equally well camouflaged but only against leafy backgrounds were the beautiful Green Silver-lines and Blotched Emerald, three of the latter for me the moths of the morning.

Others camouflage themselves by looking like inedible objects (see Buff-tip above) – one of the more frequent forms is to resemble bird-poo, as here with Garden Carpet and Lime-speck Pug.

And to round of a motley selection, a few grey and brown species, here Pale Oak Beauty, Grey Pug and Riband Wave. A full list of those moth species we recorded is appended here bc moths june 24. And before anyone queries whether ‘moth trapping’ is compatible with our desire to be the home of ecological and sustainable gardening, please rest assured all moths were released unharmed at the end of the two hour morning session, away from the attentions of predators such as Blackbirds.

Another attraction for our customers on these events is that they get access before anyone else is there. First thing, the gardens are truly sublime: the only sound is birdsong and the only feeling pure joy.

And it gives us chance to try and find ‘free-range’ moths and other insects. We found the caterpillars of Iris Sawflies munching the irises and proving to all other visitors we don’t poison the planet in our mission to create a beautiful garden.

Always something to see! Blue-tailed and Azure Damselflies were everywhere, scabious heads had Hairy Shield-bugs, and best of all (a rival to the biggest and brightest of the moths) a solitary bronze-highlighted, metallic green Rose Chafer, a real speciality of the Colchester area, munching contentedly on an umbellifer.

All too soon the event was over, but the clouds were gathering, reasserting the typical weather pattern of this summer!

If anyone would like to join us on the next one of these moth mornings on July 20th, 0900-1100am, please book through this link Marvellous Moths! – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens. We can never promise moths, and all are weather-dependent but whatever we will find something to start your weekend in style!

Spring half-term in the Beth Chatto Gardens, and time for kids’ activities. A day of bug walks was planned, but the weather thought otherwise – persistent drizzle, sometimes heavy and a cool , blustery north wind lending a very unseasonable feel to the day.

So, no kids (indeed, few visitors of any age)…

Lots of dripping  flowers, growing with a lushness fuelled by the damp preceding months…

Foliage bejewelled with mercurial magic…

A few (some very soggy) insects, the bumblebees especially on Salvia, Veronicastrum and Knautia …

… while the Mullein Moth larvae keep munching on, safe in our hands from the bane of pesticide sprays!

And one happy intern on their final day at the garden who had a personalised tour, the gloom lifted by a singing Goldcrest competing for earspace with several Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, foraging Robins and Song Thrushes, and a low, flyover Red Kite.

But best of all, a call from one of the gardeners to say that one of their rescued Elephant Hawk-moths had emerged! Let’s take this as a portent for a June filled with colour and life,. And some summery weather please…

It is the start of that precious time of year when the natural delights come so thick and fast that there is barely time to catch up, so this blog of my latest Meet the Wandering Naturalist event is necessarily short, mostly photos and few words. It was a lovely sunny day and the two walks attracted an amazing 35 interested visitors, who I hope all went away with the sight and sound of our garden wildlife etched on their brains and buzzing in their ears.

There are always superstar plats, and this time for bumblebees and Honeybees it was the Cistus and Allium species that were playing that role…

… whereas for hoverflies, beetles and pretty much everything else it was the various umbellifers and the Euphorbias, especially in the Reservoir Garden.

There were damselflies everywhere, especially but certainly not exclusively, round the ponds.

But really there was wildlife in every corner of the garden, from the Buzzards overhead to the singing Goldcrests, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, and everywhere invertebrate life…

There were butterflies and moths, including for one of the groups Green Hairstreaks on the Thyme and several Silver Y moths, the latter newly arrived immigrants …

… spiders, including a lurid Stretch Spider and a feisty crab spider Xysticus lanio …

… Common Scorpion-flies

… a myriad of true flies ….

… beetles, including several types of soldier-beetle and a Red-headed Cardinal-beetle…

… and an array of true bugs, with Dock Bugs and Hairy Shield-bugs everywhere ….

… plus the best insect of the day, a single Bronze Shield-bug, a rather scarce bug in Essex and the first time it has been found here. Always surprises to be found!

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre.  For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

Blogs of the previous Meet the Wandering Naturalist event this summer can be found here:

April: The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: among the April showers… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

May sweeps in, and the focus for wildlife turns to the ponds and water margins. The first damselflies are out, darting everywhere, mating and making more for next year. Large Red and Azure Damselflies, along with Blue-tailed Damselflies (not photographed) are on the wing now, and the first dragonflies will be very soon.

Sharing the aquatic early stages of damselflies but in a completely different order of insects, Alder-flies have emerged in large numbers in the past week.

Lots of beetles are now out and about, from Lily Beetles to soldier beetles, click beetles and weevils…

… and the variety of butterflies is changing: Orange-tips are fading out while Peacocks are still going strong, and the first Speckled Woods and Holly Blues are now flying.

Flies, including parasite-flies, dance-flies and snail-killers are all over the garden, but especially attracted to Euphorbia …

… while bees are often more specialist, seeking the closed tubular flowers that other insects cannot penetrate. Apart from the Honeybees that go for anything that has either nectar or pollen or both…

Plant bugs have also come out in force with the warm weather – here are Dock Bugs, a Cinnamon Bug and orgies of Hairy Shield-bugs, with the results of their endeavours.

The first, tiny Dark Bush-crickets have appeared: amazing to think that after five skin-sheds they will be serenading warm summer evenings in the hedgerows.

And everywhere there is insect abundance, there are always things ready to exploit nature’s largesse: here, a Xysticus crab-spider and a Nursery-web Spider.

Everything shown above is more-or-less widespread and relatively common. But there are the rarities as well: this week has produced the garden’s second record of the White-clouded Longhorn beetle (the first, two years ago, was only the fourth Essex location in that last hundred years) and the Purple-loosestrife was covered in a leaf- beetle Galerucella calmariensis. When we looked up the Essex distribution map for this creature, we find it at only five previous locations, all of which are along the southern or western boundaries of the county.

And while not as scarce as the above two, it was great to find the Bishop’s-mitre (a plant bug that we see rather infrequently) and I was inordinately excited (as the gardeners will testify!) to spot a couple of Green Hairstreaks nectaring on the Thyme, my first of the summer and also my absolute favourite butterfly.

All this, and there are a few flowers to see as well!!

If anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting!) on May 17, June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Walks commence at 11AM and 12 noon each day, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre.  For garden entrance tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens, and do come expecting to want to buy some of the wildlife-attracting plants I will show you, as well as delicious tea and cakes!

What a wonderful day to wander round Beth Chatto’s Garden! The sun was shining, I was in shorts for the first time this year, and I could almost forgive and forget the vagaries of our spring so far…

Swallows twittering overhead, Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps in full song, and there were Orange-tips everywhere (my first of the year) and Green-veined Whites newly emerged, joining the overwintered Peacocks, along with my first Hornet of the summer.

Insects were everywhere, the sheer bioabundance testament to the spring weather and tribute to the fact that we welcome (or at least live with) all-comers – pollinators, predators, chompers and parasites: we don’t kill the planet with pesticides in creating a beautiful garden.

A myriad of insects of all sorts, from beetles  …

… to flies: lots of hoverflies,  a couple of St Mark’s Flies, a wetland snail-killer Tetanocera ferruginea and a host of others ...

… to bees and wasps, including abundant evidence of nesting Tawny Mining Bees …

… to true bugs.

It seemed that every plant in the garden was being used in some way or another, for feeding, basking or mating but the greatest attractor of all on this day was the Perennial Candytuft, in the Scree Garden, next to and sheltered by Beth’s house:

All of the above are pretty widespread creatures, but as always, time spent looking and searching revealed some specialities that I have not, or only rarely, recorded in the garden before. First is a micromoth, a metallic glistening morsel with wingspan barely a centimetre, called Dyseriocrania subpurpurella. Its larvae live in blotch mines on Oak leaves, and while it is widespread throughout Essex, it is only the second time I have seen it here, possibly because the adult emerges in spring when so often the weather conditions are not conducive to flight.

The Slender Groundhopper is a very small grasshopper relative; groundhoppers are the only members of the grasshopper and bush-cricket group of insects (Orthoptera) that overwinter as adults. Although again widespread across Essex, especially around the muddy edges of ponds, this is the first time I have seen it in our garden.

And then a trio of true bugs, all also new to me as inhabitants of our garden. The Rhombic Leatherbug is a scarce south-eastern species, in Essex more or less restricted to Thames-side and the valley of the River Colne. The ground bug Trapezonotus desertus is found also across Essex, but with only a thin scattering of records: the Essex Field Club map shows only some ten localities. And finally, best of all, the spurge-bug Dicranocephalus medius: a very strongly southern species, this has only one spot on the Essex map (in the deep south) and we have seen it before only in west London.

Of course you cannot overlook the flowers and other plants. The ferns are rearing their reptilian croziers skyward …

… while the flowers span the turn of the seasons, from tulips to paeonies.

The overwhelming impression I had was of joy in the garden. I have never seen so many smiling happy people wandering around, for the first time in many months not having to keep one eye on the weather as they walk. And although the weather forecast is not so good, if anyone wants to join me on a nature walk around the gardens, I will be doing just that (weather permitting) at 11AM and 12 noon this coming Friday, 19 April, meeting at the Visitor Information Centre. Once you have paid to come in, the walk is free! Further ‘Meet the Wandering Naturalist‘ events are also planned for May 17, June 21, July 19, August 2, August 16 and September 20. 

For tickets and more information, visit our website Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens