TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
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Encourage wildlife in your garden by growing a teasel
Gardening with MAT COWARD
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The Together Alliance is hosting two summits, North and South, to build power and plan action against the scourge of racism peddled by the right. DANIEL KEBEDE urges mass participation
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Whatever differences exist among international sympathisers of the Bolivarian revolution about its current trajectory, they should unite against the imperialist power that is the source of an enforced retreat, argues ROGER D HARRIS
Trade unions need to step up and force a turn in the policies of the labour movement to effectively confront the far-right threat, argues NICK WRIGHT
I SUSPECT that the reader who told me she has a garden “literally about the size of a luggage trunk,” and asked what she could grow in it to attract wildlife, thought she was setting me a challenge. But in fact the answer is very easy: plant a teasel.
I’m writing this on a day of heavy snow, looking out of the window at my own teasel (botanical name Dipsacus fullonum), at which three goldfinches — surely the most exotic-looking of Britain’s regular garden birds — are busily feeding. They’re after the seeds, which their long, fine beaks allow them to prise out of the plant’s dead, dried flower heads.
Teasels must produce an awful lot of seeds, because the birds visit them repeatedly right through autumn and winter. If you know that goldfinches exist in your area, and you’d like to see them in your garden, then I don’t think there is any better plant you can grow. Other seed-eating birds also use teasel, though goldfinches will tend to picket them out.
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