Buzz off

Awoke to the buzzing of a wasp this morning - opened the window wider, saw it escape and went back to bed only to be awoken again by another wasp, then another and another. They seemed to be leaving at regular intervals like jets from an aircraft carrier.

Inspecting the corner of the room, I found a perfect golf ball-sized nest dangling from the curtain pelmet. There was just the one wasp, coming and going. It must have made the nest over the weekend when we were away. After it flew off once more I removed the nest and closed all the bedroom windows. Sure enough, the wasp was soon back, butting the window pain.

Undeterred, it went to the next open window it could find and I could hear John clearing it out of his room. Apparently the wasp was a queen building its first nest. Left alone the nest would have become progressively larger. Hopefully it will find somewhere else to make its home.

Postscript: The wasp did not find a new home. We left the windows closed for two days but after opening them there was a familiar buzzing on the morning of the third day as the wasp sought to resume her nest making in exactly the same spot. Her resistance was brought to a swift end with a single blow from a rolled up copy of the Sunday Times Rich List.

I hate playing God with our garden wildlife and don't spray the roses (although I do lay down slug pellets to protect the Hostas). But sometimes you have to lend a helping hand. I rescued the frog spawn from the pond and its hungry goldfish and put it in a plastic box full of water. Now I've done something similar with the toad spawn. Hopefully some of the tadpoles will survive this year.

Sex, drugs and Orchids that grow in the dark

Orchids are amazing plants. Firstly they are the biggest flower group in the world with about 35,000 varieties. Secondly they have developed all kinds of diverse ways to pollinate themselves.

Take the Bee Orchid. Somehow - I suppose it has to be natural selection - it has evolved a flower that looks the image of a female bee. So male bees hop on board for a bit of casual sex. While doing so the orchid's pollinia - its pollen sack - hooks on to the bee which deposits it at the next Bee Orchid to which the bee has taken a fancy. So as the bee does what birds and bees do, in blissful ignorance of the way it has been duped, the only real sex that's going on is between the orchids.

Slipper orchids attract thirsty insects looking for a drink in their flower pouch or sack. Often the insect slips in, gets wet and hooks the pollinia as it dries off.

One orchid is a little more sophisticated, exuding a narcotic substance that puts the insect's lights out when a lid closes over the sack. When the lid lifts, the insect comes round then crawls out with the pollinia attached. In this case the narcotic is addictive enough to drag the insect back to other flowers, like tiny insect junkies visiting their suppliers.

I know all this because we went to the Royal Horticultural Society Wisley today to photograph trees. There were daffodils in bloom. Daffodils in mid-January! Just to prove it I photographed Gill with some (above). On the way out we called in the plant centre. It was Orchid Weekend so the shop was packed with orchids and there was a Gardeners' Question Time-style presentation where, apart from the above, we learned that there is an orchid in Australia that grows underground. What's the point of that?

Wisley's resident expert assures us that Orchids are pretty easy to grow. Don't you believe it. We bought a Cymbidium two years ago and after a wonderful initial flower display we have had nothing but leaves. I took it outside in the summer, just as I was told to do. I have been sparing with food and water. It doesn't get too much sunlight. I have even tried talking to it in my best Prince of Wales' brogue.

After all the excitement at the start of this note I might have expected an X-rated Cymbidium by now, a Cymbidium so outrageous that it has to be stored on the top shelf , away from prying eyes or, more alarming still, a visit from the obscene vegetation squad.

Sadly I think we have bought the most Puritanical orchid on the planet. It doesn't dance, sing or flash at any passing wasps. It simply sits there looking green, dull and bored. It needs to get out more.