I've spent some frustrating hours in my garden recently, despairing at the number of insects that seem to be ruining the plants. Plum aphids have meant barely any edible fruit on my Victoria Plum tree for the last three years, despite the tree itself having grown and thrived. The blueberry plant is now the size of a tree but I've had seven blueberries in the last two seasons, because aphids cover the leaves with their eggs. They and their offspring then eat everything in sight.
Spiders are making cobweb bridges between every surface, often overnight. Snail and slug trails might twinkle in the moonlight but they look less appealing in the daytime. There are ants a plenty too; I even found what I assume was a wood ant making a pile of sawdust out of the leg of an old table.
Weeds too see our garden as a premium site; though we are nettle-free, brambles grow everywhere, which makes gardening a spiky challenge. Ivy and holly thrive too. It's great living in a house that was built on the site of an orchard because the soil is lovely, but everything grows well, whether you want it to or not.
This season, we have the added joy of a robin nesting in the barbecue. OK, so we can't barbecue till they move out, but watching the parents dashing in and out with mouths full of insects is a joy.
And seeing that made me realise something. If we didn't have all those insects, the birds that visit our garden wouldn't have food for their young. Does it matter that the hedge has lace where there should be leaves, when I know that the creature that ate the leaves will feed my young robins?
I am lucky enough to have over twenty species of birds visit my garden , all of whom feast on both the food I leave out for them and the insects that eat my plants.
So what is a garden for?
For me, I now know. It's a haven for wildlife that I can share.
And that makes me happy.
