On a summer’s day, your garden is full of activity, with hoverflies, butterflies and bees flying from flower to flower. But that is only one slice of the action on your plot. In the ground beneath you

A fungus only given a scientific name in 2014 has proved fascinating to both mycologists and psychedelics researchers alike. Eaten raw, Lanmaoa asiatica triggers vivid hallucinations, but, unlike almo

Professor Buczacki is a borticultural expert, weiter and former chair of Gardeners Question Time

HAVE you ever taken a close look at your soil? I mean, a really close look? And if not, why not? Soil, compost, dirt, earth – whatever you want to call it, it’s often overlooked, and yet it’s one of t

Whether mutually beneficial or a parasitic nuisance, Nature’s symbiotic relationships are as multifarious as they are marvellous, says John Lewis-Stempel

When she died in 2024, Spain’s Maria Branyas was the world’s oldest woman. She was 117. Experts believe the secret to her longevity may have been the bacteria living in her gut – her microbiome – and