Things to look out for in the garden - May

While the gardener thinks of June and July as the months when the garden is at its most busy and beautiful, for nature, May is the month when everything is happening - animals and insects raising their young, native plants coming into bloom and even last years young foxes and badgers moving on to look for new homes for themselves.

The sound that's most likely to stop you in your tracks this month is the cuckoo's call. Once so common that it was hardly worth remarking on, it's now a much rarer sound and one that really marks the heart of spring. As we all know, the cuckoo lays her eggs in another birds nest and when her fledgling hatches, it pushes the other eggs, or even the other baby birds, out of the nest! What isn't so commonly known is that parent birds - who are not the brightest creatures in the world - not only continue to feed the creature that may be four times they own size, but can also call in last year's brood, if they are living nearby and haven't mated, to help find food for the interloper!

Don't make the mistake of destroying any lacewings you see in this month - for some reason, may gardeners believe the lacewing is a pest but it's not. Although it's the same colour as green aphids, it's actually a predator on them, so it's a gardener's helper.

This is when butterflies fill the air - if your garden isn't as butterfly packed as you'd like, you might want to think about planting buddleia, honeysuckle and even a nettle patch to encourage them. Remember that it's not just about getting them to visit for nectar from plants, but leaving wildlife strips where they may have laid their eggs so that next year you start with your own butterflies.

Garden May lacewing photograph by Whiskymac, used under a creative commons attribution licence.

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