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Cowslips at Christmas - a tale of Primula floral promiscuity, and an annual New Year hunt for seasonally confused flowers
These cowslips have been flowering in our garden since mid-December.
 • Phil Gates
A happy accident
Chinese lanterns for Christmas
 • Phil Gates
The botanical carousel of the seasons slows in winter, but never quite grinds to a halt.
From this morning’s walk around Wolsingham in Weardale, just a couple of days before the winter solstice, the promise of spring, Pristine new lesser…
 • Phil Gates
A wandering wasp, a bird that can silence church bells, winter fragrance and a feline gate guardian
One December day, several years ago, I found a queen wasp hibernating in a finger of my gardening gloves, a memorably painful encounter.
 • Phil Gates
Travellers' joy on the last bus home
Feathery clouds of Clematis vitalba seeds, entangled in the briars and hazels in the corner of the field, shine in winter sunshine.
 • Phil Gates
A tree with a tutu, a romantic parasite, hedgerow bling and a peel of moss bells
We had one exceptionally warm, sunny day in late November, warm enough to leave the conservatory door open until dusk and for this tiny twenty-plume…
 • Phil Gates

November 2025

Charcoal, a sermon in stone and the conception of a new fern.
This alder Alnus glutinosa at Durham Wildlife Trust’s Low Barns nature reserve was recently felled and sawn into logs.
 • Phil Gates
Armchair ornithology, scratch-and-sniff botany, fern siege catapults and survival on a diet of alder seeds
Three o’clock on a freezing November afternoon.
 • Phil Gates
Sparrow wars, the inner beauty of a troublesome weed, touch-sensitive stamens and toadstool architecture
I live on a hill, where the back garden slopes downhill from the house, so the crowns of trees planted 30 years ago are now level with the upstairs…
 • Phil Gates
Seasonally-confused primroses, feathered hooligans, aggressive blackbirds and spring pre-packaged.
Primroses Primula vulgaris in flower last week, forcing their way through the fallen leaves in Elvet Hill road cemetery in Durham city.
 • Phil Gates
Golden needles, purple jellydiscs and brittlegills, diapered timber and a second spring for forget-me-nots
Purple jellydisc Ascocoryne sarcoides, looking like the chewy wine gums we bought in the sweetshop on our way home from school when I was a kid.
 • Phil Gates

October 2025

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