Susie White

A visit to the abandoned Tynebottom lead mine near Garrigill reveals vivid mineral formations, including iron-orange stains, cobalt-pink layers, sulphurous yellows, stalactites and cave pearls. Guided by miners from nearby Nenthead Mines, a group of artists explores the workings for inspiration, while the writer is especially captivated by the cave pearls formed as calcium carbonate builds around grains of sand. The underground excursion ends with the group emerging wet but elated, and the writer later preserves the experience through drawings.

Phacelia is presented as a versatile garden and agricultural plant that suppresses weeds, captures nutrients, improves drainage and conditions soil. Its abundant nectar and pollen support a wide range of insects, while its mauve flowers add colour to garden borders. Close observation and sketching reveal the plant’s intricate structure, which is also highlighted through Karl Blossfeldt’s botanical photography.

A visit to Sarah Eberle’s On the Edge garden at the Chelsea Flower Show becomes a reflective celebration of modest, unprotected spaces where nature thrives near towns and cities. Created to mark the centenary of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and launch an interactive map of England’s countryside edges, the garden uses native and naturalised plants, willow, a drystone wall and Chris Wood’s Gaia sculpture to evoke community, memory and overlooked wildlife habitats. Its emotional impact was recognized with both a gold medal and the award for best in show.

A garden in Allendale, Northumberland, has become a nesting site for a tawny owl, a secretive woodcock and a mallard. The writer describes helping the mallard move 10 ducklings over a boundary wall to reach the river and suggests that the birds’ tolerance of human presence reflects a “human shield effect”, in which animals become less vigilant around people when humans deter predators. Repeated successful nesting and the garden’s dense, undisturbed vegetation may have reinforced the site’s appeal.

At Bowlees in Teesdale, conservation workers plant rare pot-grown rock whitebeam trees on inaccessible limestone ledges to re-establish the species in the North Pennines. The project began with difficult seed collection in 2022, followed by propagation through Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank and a local wildflower nursery. The trees are being tested in different ledge conditions, where their ability to withstand harsh environments may protect them from grazing by sheep and rabbits.

A walk along Newcastle’s Lower Ouseburn reveals an exceptionally diverse urban plant habitat shaped by the river, industry, human movement and historical trade. Naturalist James Common identifies native species, archaeophytes and more recent introductions growing in cracks, beneath boardwalks and along embankments. His survey found 1,123 species in the area, making it one of the most botanically diverse parts of the city and illustrating Newcastle’s history through its plants.

A coastal walk at Cullernose Point in Northumberland takes place amid powerful post-storm seas, gale-force winds and damp, cold air. The account describes the dramatic dolerite cliffs and folded limestone and sandstone foreshore of the Whin Sill, formed by magma intrusion about 295 million years ago, and observes fulmars nesting on the cliffs ahead of the seasonal return of kittiwakes.

At Alnmouth in Northumberland, changing tides and rough seas have exposed razor clams, sea coal and other coastal debris. Among the strand are intricate tubes built by sand mason worms, Lanice conchilega, from fragments of shell and rock. The tubes protect the worms, whose tentacles feed on plankton, algae and decaying plants, but curlews and redshanks can extract them as food by probing the seabed.

In Allendale, Northumberland, a yearly tradition of cutting holly branches for a Christmas wreath prompts observations about the plant’s abundant berries, reproduction and defenses. The piece explains that holly’s prickly lower leaves are an adaptation to browsing by roe deer, while pruning can produce denser, more protective growth that benefits nesting birds. It also notes holly’s cultural association with resilience and protection.

In Allendale, Northumberland, moth-trapping remains rewarding in November despite colder, wetter conditions. The diary describes moths’ adaptations to rain and cold, including the December moth, and records species such as red-green carpet, small wainscot, chestnut, winter moth and feathered thorn. The standout discovery is the intricately patterned angle shades moth, whose geometric markings mimic dry leaves and exemplify the quiet beauty of winter wildlife.

In Allendale, Northumberland, tall hollyhocks have survived autumn storms and flourished in unlikely places, providing shelter and food for butterflies, bumblebees and moths. The single-flowered varieties offer nectar and pollen, while their seed cases are now dry and ready to harvest. Despite rust disease and poor soil, the plants are left to self-seed, with seeds collected for friends and future gardens.

A prolonged hot, dry summer has caused the River East Allen in Northumberland to shrink dramatically, exposing rocks, stagnant pools and struggling aquatic life. Trees are shedding leaves prematurely in a “false autumn,” while fruits and nuts are smaller or falling early, disrupting food supplies for birds, mammals, insects and fish. The unusual conditions have also enabled invasive Himalayan balsam to be removed, but the broader ecological effects may persist even if rain returns.

A warm, dry spring has led to a marked increase in butterfly sightings in Allendale, Northumberland, contrasting sharply with the previous year’s scarcity. The 2025 Big Butterfly Count initially recorded high numbers of white butterflies, gatekeepers, red admirals and meadow browns, while species such as speckled woods and commas continue moving north. Despite this seasonal abundance, the article notes that butterflies’ long-term decline remains unresolved, although the renewed profusion offers some hope and pleasure.

In Allendale, Northumberland, bird cherry trees have been defoliated by bird cherry ermine moth caterpillars, whose silk webbing protects them while they feed. After one bird cherry was felled because its roots repeatedly damaged a boundary wall, its branches were repurposed into a dead hedge. The hedge provides a practical, cost-free barrier and shelter for diverse wildlife, while the defoliated tree is expected to recover and produce new leaves before autumn.

Cottongrass is flourishing across the Allendale moors after a dry spring, creating a striking display of white seedheads. The hardy sedge helps protect peat from erosion, provides food for black grouse and supports moorland biodiversity. The North Pennines National Landscape is planting it to restore degraded blanket bog, while the plant’s fibres have historically been used for pillows, candle wicks and wound dressings.

In Allendale, Northumberland, Susie White observes a mallard incubating her eggs for 31 days, surviving heat, limited opportunities to feed and drink, and the threat of predators. The eggs hatch within 20 hours, producing 10 ducklings. When the brood cannot climb over the garden wall to reach the river, White and her husband transfer them in a bucket, allowing the ducklings to reunite with their mother and swim down the River Allen.

In Allendale, Northumberland, a mallard pair visits a wildlife garden, where the female selects a nesting site behind a rose bush and builds a lined nest from leaves, grasses and garden vegetation. The observer describes the duck’s careful material selection, camouflage and the wider pattern of mallards nesting in the garden, noting that she lays one egg at sunrise each day for 10 days.

At dawn beside the River Allen in Allendale, Northumberland, a pair of dippers are observed courting and building a nest beneath an eroding riverbank. The male performs in the fast current while both birds gather moss, grass and roots for a domed nest just a metre above the water. Their nesting site is vulnerable to flooding and future summer spates, prompting concern that the eggs and young may be swept away.

A winter walk from Nenthead to Garrigill in Cumbria follows the South Tyne through a landscape shaped by historic lead and silver mining and dramatic sedimentary geology. The river’s gorge grows deeper and more rugged before opening onto the Ashgill Force waterfall, where water plunges 50ft beneath a road bridge. The account also highlights the ravine’s damp microclimate, woodland vegetation and traces of recent storms and winter weather.

A calm, clear evening in Allendale, Northumberland, brings an unusually vivid display of the aurora borealis, visible from the writer’s garden rather than the surrounding hills. The piece combines personal observations of the shifting green, red and pink lights with descriptions of Orion, the Milky Way and local dark-sky sites, ending with a shooting star and a garden covered in frost.