The first butterfly sighting of the year is always a red-letter day for me, testified by the fact that for the rest of the year I will always be able recall where I was and what I was doing when the butterfly made that appearance. I can remember bizarrely, for example, that in 2010 my first butterfly of that year was another brimstone seen flitting past a lay-by off the A1 in Hertfordshire; however, this year my first sighting would be doubly special, as for the record it was spotted in my own garden on 15 March at about 11.40am!
Being one of the few British species capable of overwintering as an adult, the long-lived brimstone is invariably the first butterfly of the calendar year to be recorded on the wing as the nomadic males emerge early from hibernation to begin fluttering around woodlands and along hedgerows in their annual search for virgin females to mate. The bright yellow-coloured brimstone was certainly well known amongst the earliest butterfly collectors, with some people still maintaining that the word ‘butterfly’ is nothing more than a shortening of the brimstone’s old name of ‘butter-coloured fly’. The paler-coloured and more scarcely seen females are also incredibly fastidious as to where they lay their eggs, only choosing either purging buckthorn or alder buckthorn. With this knowledge in mind, the sole reason why I had picked alder buckthorn as one of the constituents of our mixed-species hedgerow was to try and attract the butterfly into the garden – what I didn’t expect was for it to take a mere 48 hours. This was more coincidence than design, I suspected!
Buoyed by my butterfly sighting and having collected the large nails I needed, I was soon straight back onto the bins assembly, which slowly but steadily began to take shape with the addition of each plank to the corner posts. Despite the near-constant noise interruption created by the sound of hammer on nail-head, I was surprised to still be able to count at least six different bird species singing from in or around the garden. Chaffinch, greenfinch, dunnock, blackbird, robin and wren could all be heard staking their claim for the chunk of real estate which also happened to be our garden – and they were most welcome to it! Putting the hammer aside for a break to properly enjoy this impromptu concert, I then suddenly picked up the call of a kingfisher as its shrill whistle cut through the other birdsong like a knife through butter – it was back again! Fully expecting it to have disappeared around the bend of the stream and out of sight by the time I stuck my head over the bank for a look, I was astonished to see it perching on one of the hazel branches arcing over the brook from our side of the bank.
Even without binoculars the red base to the lower mandible could be clearly seen and immediately identified the bird as a female. As far as I was concerned, the presence of an adult female in the middle of March meant that she was clearly the resident female and would be laying her first clutch within the month. How exciting was that? Not only did we have kingfishers whizzing past the bottom of our garden, but the presence of a female so close to the breeding season indicated that there would almost certainly be a resident male too, which in turn probably meant that the nest site would be close by. Our own resident kingfishers – it was too thrilling for words, and, for me, total vindication for having bought the house and garden in the first place. True, we knew that both needed a lot of work, but the garden particularly had the most enormous potential, and more importantly we were going to have the most fun this year unlocking it.
Christina was envious of the fact that I’d been able to spend some quality time in the garden midweek, and so, come the weekend, she was determined to make up for her GWS (Garden Withdrawal Syndrome) by spending a couple of full days capitalising on our good start. Despite the fact that it was now nearer April than March, there had been a ground frost over night, but once again the weather looked set fair. What an early spring we were enjoying!
The first part of the morning was spent in the front garden. While we had already agreed to prioritise the back garden, the front garden did represent the public face of our property – and what would our neighbours think if we hadn’t made an effort? So while I carefully weeded, Christina’s job was to heavily prune the buddleia just to the right of our bay window, which had obviously not been touched for years and was enacting out its plans for world domination.
Buddleia is perhaps much better known as the butterfly bush, and I have strong memories from my childhood in Stafford of a huge butterfly bush in our next-door neighbour’s garden. Mr Hill also had the most amazing collection of pinned butterflies – a practice frowned on today now that digital photography has enabled collectors to create something every bit as good without harming a single insect. But what I remember even more clearly than his trays of butterflies was the thrilling sight of his huge butterfly bush alive with small tortoiseshells, peacocks and red admirals.
A native of China introduced here in the 1890s, the butterfly bush has proved a blessing and a curse in equal measure. While its long, honey-scented, purple flowering spikes are undoubtedly a big summer hit with all manner of moths and butterflies, its light winged seeds have also enabled its prolific spread across virtually the whole of Britain, with the exception of the far north. Certainly in Bristol you can’t pass a piece of waste ground in the city without at least a few buddleia bushes exploiting the cracks in between the pavement or the tiniest of crevices in the surrounding walls. Certainly on the train journey between Bristol and Bath, the buddleia dominates the vegetation along the rail-side clinker to such an extent that the view out of the window often seems to be that of just one very long, sinuous butterfly bush. So in a nutshell, because of its excellent wildlife credentials, the bush would be able to stay in the front garden, but only in a much more diminutive and manageable form!
Taking a break from our work, we put the kettle on in preparation for the arrival of a VIP. We were both terribly excited as we were about to receive a visit from gardening royalty. One of my oldest and dearest friends, whom I first met at university, one of the few people I stayed in contact with during my five years of working in the tropics and also the person whose floor I slept on for 10 months when I moved down to Bristol in 1999, is Mark. Being a Senior Producer at the world-famous BBC Natural History Unit, Mark has worked on everything from The Private Life of Plants to Human Planet, but, more relevant to this book, he is also the most amazing gardener, and a man who also seems to have chlorophyll rather than blood running through his veins. Also, rather hilariously, his surname is, erm, Flowers!
Mark had kindly accepted our invitation to come and give the garden a once-over and to dispense some much-needed advice, but what we hadn’t expected were the plants he also brought over, which were deemed surplus to requirements from his own garden. Arriving with the delightful surprise of his car boot chock-a-block with sedums, pulmonarias and phlox, Mark had also thoughtfully driven over in his gardening clothes, aware of the fact that he would have to sing for his supper!
Starting on the wooded bank, we were firstly keen for him to identify a few plants, which without flowers or foliage we were still unsure of. With the experience of having spent the best part of the last 40 years being obsessed with garden plants, this proved a straightforward exercise for Mark as he revealed with typical theatrical poise that we were also the proud owners of a magnolia, a viburnum and a winter-flowering honeysuckle. The magnolia was a particularly exciting find, but was really struggling for light and space and needed help.
Expertly handling the loppers, Mark began to prune the magnolia into a much more manageable size and a more aesthetically pleasing shape. Advising us that the surrounding shrubbery would also need pegging back, Christina, under Mark’s direction, began brandishing her secateurs