The Bumblebee Flies Anyway: A year of gardening and (wild)life

✍ Scribed by Kate Bradbury

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Wildlife
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 181
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. On her own she unscrews, saws, and hammers the decking away, she clears the builders' rubble and rubbish beneath it, and she digs and enriches the soil, gradually planting it up with plants she knows will attract wildlife. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden.

But while she's doing this her neighbors continue to pave and deck their gardens. The wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement?

Throughout her story, Kate draws on an eclectic and eccentric cast of friends and colleagues, who donate plants and a greenhouse, tolerate her gawping at butterflies at Gay Pride, and accompany her on trips to visit rare bumblebees and nightingales.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half-Title
Dedication
Title
Contents
Prologue: A garden
Part one: The bones, a skeleton
Autumn
Winter
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
Spring
Part two: A phoenix
Spring
Summer
Species list
Author acknowledgements
If you want to learn more…
Index
Copyright