Garden Wildflower Hunt

Another mostly garden-based day, after an early trip to Waitrose, where I only had to queue in the sunshine for about five minutes before being allowed in the store. As well as stocking up our own cupboards, I was shopping for one of Alex's gardening clients. She and her elderly husband don't drive and are now unable to get to the supermarket - she used to go by bus and get a taxi home, but this is not an option any more. I was surprised how long it took me to assemble her list - partly because I couldn't find all the exact items and had to decide what would be the best substitutes. I now have a lot more sympathy for those, like Ben, who pick items for online orders, and have to maintain a rate of 120 items an hour. I'm sure I would have failed miserably!

Most of the day was spent doing the BSBI Garden Wildflower Hunt - a new project which I can thoroughly recommend. Ypou don't need to be an expert as you can upload images and an experienced botanist will help identify them. I managed to find about 160 species of wild and naturalised plants in our garden, ranging from weedy thugs such as Couch, Garden Yellow Archangel and Green Alkanet, to more interesting species that I hadn't previously realised were present. And I haven't even attempted to do the dandelions yet! The picture in the illustration is Greater Forget-me-not - an introduced garden plant which has decided to self-seed.