Calendar 2025
Click here for the calendar index, year by year.
Click on photos for large version.
- January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December - Temperatures for year -
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February |
Jan 1: First photo of the year. It's raining, and hard frost forecast. At least I've got nearly all the winter digging done! (Over the Christmas period - a personal tradition.)
Jan 4: Frost
Jan 5: Snow overnight (but then it rained, so soon disappeared).
Jan 11: Brr!
Jan 18: Rather bedraggled iris ret:
Jan 25: Storm Eowyn managed to miss us. Crocuses starting, and a better iris ret.
| January |  |
March |
Feb 1/2: Not much happening yet. Either cold or wet. But I have cleaned out the ponds (and replaced the broken one with Az's washing up bowl).
Feb 9:
Feb 14:
Feb 17:
Feb 18: The difference one day makes. All crocuses out now.
Feb 21: Peak crocus.
Feb 25: Palomena prasina winter colouration. Green Shield Bugs overwinter as adults, hiding among leaf litter. Very wisely, they change their appearance from live leaf-colour (see 2023 May 15) to dead leaf-colour. Most sources say adults emerge to breed in May, by which time they have reverted to green, but this one was catching some rare February sunshine.
Feb 25: A bit smaller than its relative Salticus scenicus (2023 March 12) and noticably hairy ("lanigera" means "wool-bearing"). Originally native to southwest Europe, it was first noted in England in the 1930s and now has a rather patchy distribution across the county. It is "synanthropic" - likes human habitations - and in the warmth it can breed at any time of year.
| February |  |
April |
Mar 1: Sowed broad beans last week. This week, sow peas 1, raddishes, red lettuce, carrot. Don't expect anything to come up - it's cold! Rhubarb not ready yet.
Mar 7: Not much coming out. Rhubarb still not ready. (Brr!) Wiggly hazel catkins looking good, though..
Sow parsnip, spring onion, spinach beet, green lettuce.
Mar 15: Still cold!
Mar 22: Warming up. I planted lots of daffodil bulbs last autumn. Not quite a host yet, but it's getting there. Oh, and that's a celandine. (We keep having to look it up. We plant seed potatoes this week.
Mar 26: Tatianaerhynchites aequatus (Apple fruit weevil) - A distinctive weevil with its long nose, bronze thorax and red, hairy wing-cases. The female uses her nose to roll up leaves as a shelter for her egg. As well as apples, the larvae feed on other fruits of the rose family including pears, cherries and hawthorn. It is common as far north as Leeds & Manchester, though not in Wales and the West Country.
Fun fact - Andrei Legalov, who placed this species in a separate genus, named it after his mother Tatiana. I'm not sure whether that is a compliment!
Mar 29: Dry, sunny, cold at night. Not good for seeds sprouting, although broad bean (sown AGES ago) have started, and, I think, radish.
| March |  |
May |
Apr 5: Dry, sunny, cold at night. I'm watering the seeds! (With watering can.) This week sow Peas 2 (as a single Peas 1 showing!) and beetroot
Apr 11: Dry, sunny, cold at night. I'm still watering the seeds! Nothing new is appearing. Just broad bean, raddish and a single pea.
Apr 13: Peak blossom. It rained! Potatoes starting.
Apr 17: Tephritis neesii - Can you spot the differences between this insect and its close relative T. matricariae (3 Apr 2023)? This species is a British native, and common throughout England and lowland Scotland. The larvae feed on the innards of Ox-eye Daisy "flowers", and the adults feed on any seeds which manage to develop.
Apr 18: We got some rain last week! Planted out brussel sprouts (which had been on window sill). Bought aubretia and carnation (see below).
Apr 24: Peak wisteria.
| April |  |
June |
May 13: Very dry (started hosepipe watering). Not much germinating. Broad beans OK, potatoes good, brussel sprouts cross fingers... Planted out first lot of sweet corn.
May 18: Foxgloves starting. Bad buttercup year.
May 21: A newly-emerged clutch of P. prasina nymphs. The eggs were photographed 10 days ago.
Eupteryx atropunctata - A colourful little leafhopper, short of 4mm long. Some sources say "mainly on potato, mallow and sage", but another lists 50 hosts (and one of those is "Many plants"!) Doesn't seem to do any harm. Found across eastern England up to Yorkshire but seems to have a rather patchy distribution.
May 23: Roses starting. And it's rained!
May 25: Leptophyes punctatissima This is a much younger nymph than the one featured on 9 Jul 2023, very speckly with the ridiculously long antennae stripey.
Podagrica fuscipes (Mallow flea-beetle) - Nearly 4mm long with a distinctive combination of colours - the wing-cases looked more greenish than this photo shows. Mallow is the preferred food-plant but it may use related plants such as hollyhocks - not rated as a pest. Confined to south-east England and East Anglia and not showing any serious signs of spreading at present.
May 26:
May 26:
| May |  |
July |
June 6:
June 10: Nephrotoma flavipalpis (A Tiger Crane-Fly) See Nephrotoma flavescens (14 June 2023) for description of Tiger Crane-Flies. This species has a darker body than N. flavescens and dark stigmata on the wings; and strikes me as being even "leggier", if that be possible. Common throughout England, Wales and lowland Scotland.
Baccha elongata - revisited. Nothing to add to 14 May 2023, I just wanted to share a picture of a hoverfly IN FLIGHT!
June 13:
June 23: Calopteryx splendens (Banded demoiselle) - The French spelling "Demoiselle" is used for two related species of damselfly of which the males (as here) have metallic blue bodies and heavily shaded wings. The Beautiful Demoiselle (C. virgo), whose wings are even more shaded than the Banded, is a more western species, whereas the Banded is found throughout England and Wales and is spreading into Scotland. This is the species which buzzes punts on the upper river. Banded demoiselles breed in slow-moving streams and generally don't disperse far from the water - this is the first one I have seen in the garden. It didn't let me get close!
Veg garden actually managing to grow stuff this year! (Unlike last year.)
June 26: Good range of hollyhock colours this year! Plus some pinks, and a Zinnia (bought because it begun with Z!)
| June |  |
August |
July 20: Apple season starts. There are pears as well, this year! Holyhocks hanging in there. And the tomato plants are higher than the sweet corn. And it's been raining...
July 27: Last of the first flowering of roses. Or first of the second flowering....
| July |  |
September |
Aug 3: We have pears this year! (Unlike last year.) And too many apples... The photo shows the family tree, with red apples at the bottom, and greener apples further up.
Aug 10: Tomatoes and pears (not yet ready) and apples (glut!).
Aug 30: Still apples, still pears, tomatoes starting to be serious, sedum starting, hollyhock finishing, and no, wallflowers are not supposed to flower in their first year...
| August |  |
October |
Sep 8: Himacerus mirmicoides (Ant Damsel-bug) - adult. This is the adult of the insect seen in immature form on 3 July 2023 - it looks completely different. It was taking an interest in the potato crop, which seems odd for a predaotory bug!.
| September |  |
November |
| October |  |
December |
| November |  |
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© Jo Edkins 2025 - Return to Garden index