The Full Monty

When considering garden wildlife we’re often guilty of labelling them good, bad or just plain ugly, says Monty. But it’s time we learned to love all creatures

- Monty

It is a wonderful thing that British gardeners are becoming increasingly aware of, and sensitive to, the importance of wildlife in our gardens. Not so long ago, a great swathe of gardeners across the land regarded any creature that was not a family pet, and which dared show up in their garden, as a ‘pest’ that immediately posed the challenge of how best to eliminate it.

Vast fortunes have been built upon the belief that your garden only survives at all by virtue of the chemical armoury kindly made available by the nice people from the pharmaceutical industries. However, luckily – or disappointingly according to your tendency – all the nasties that have been assiduously blitzed with a cocktail of chemicals for the past 70 years are still mysteriously with us. This would raise a wry smile were it not for the collateral damage of the absurd regime of chemical warfare waged on wildlife by a generation of gardeners. Using chemicals to spray aphids is like collecting mushrooms with a JCB. Yes a few mushrooms might come through the process undamaged but the collateral damage would be horrific. Using chemicals to cope with one fungus is like shooting a wasp with a 12-bore shotgun.