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A vast encyclopedia, free for all to use online, aiming to detail all woody plants that grow in temperate regions. Written by experts, it is the single largest horticultural work ever created, and is …

Ah, the good old "Gouty-Stem Tree" of Australia! Actually, I honestly had no idea that Baobab's had reached the Great Land of Oz; I have (mistakenly) always assumed they were endemic to Africa, but …

A fascinating quote about Rudolph Zallinger's iconic (and problematic) March of Progress representation of hominin evolution. Once again, it feels like ignoring the experts has caused …

Notes from an interview of Dr. John Grimshaw, director of the Yorkshire Arboretum, on tree planting, climate pledges, and conservation, published in House & Garden September …

I've seen some good reviews of Ecologi. For a relatively low monthly cost (<£5) you can fund tree planting, rewilding initiatives, and environmental community schemes all over the world. They've …

I continue to be impressed by the commitment Krystal – my web host – shows towards green computing. Their recent milestone of planting a million trees also highlighted a really cool charity: Ecologi.

Have you ever heard of Marc van Roosmalen? No, I hadn't either - although that is slightly less surprising for you, unless you also have a degree with a heavy focus on primatology. So who is this …

I have to admit, after a particularly awful experience well over a decade ago I have deliberately avoided travelling through the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. As a result, I had no idea about …

Yesterday, we visited The Vyne, a National Trust location in Hampshire. I'd love to say that we'd gone to dig into the history of the area but, really, we went to catch-up with family and enjoy a …

It's that odd time of year, the bit between Christmas and New Year where time doesn't really flow like you expect it to. No one knows what day of the week it is and everything seems to be …

A full write up of our trip to Devon and the Chilterns a few weeks ago, from folk festivals to Whipsnade Zoo to tree cathedrals. We had a great, highly varied time, exploring some places we know very well from a new angle and some entirely new parts of the country.

Jonas has put together a useful overview of why the "new" Context API in React is probably a better option than Redux for many simple use cases, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to set up …

I guess I'm reading up on React Context a lot today. Kent provides a useful step-by-step guide in his normal steady manner, which I found pretty easy to grasp. He also makes a very valid …

Static sites don't make search functionality easy, but luckily there are some excellent services that do. I've been messing around with Algolia and finally have it working with Craft and Gatsby the way I want it... on the backend, at least.

In which I start off asking a simple question: what content categories should I use on this website? Four hours later, I've discoverd information gardening, now pages, digital-me libraries, and oh so much more. And yes, I think I've answered that first question. Fancy a trip down the rabbit hole?

It's a shame to see the "classical" sail-trees of Furaha are no longer making the reality-check cut, but the reasoning is (as always) …

There are several strong arguments for moving away from using "master branch" as default terminology, but what should it be replace with? Personally, I like the idea of extending the tree abstraction that we use when talking about branches, so have started using "trunk".

After four and a half months of avoiding almost everyone, we decided to meet up with Alison's parents midway between London and Exeter. The pandemic rolls on, of course, but we felt comfortable …

We're still avoiding public transport (haven't been on a train or bus since early March at this point 🤯) so after getting an invite to see some friends we ended up walking to, around, and from Kew …

It's a long weekend, but we hadn't planned anything special. An early invite up to Scotland with my parents felt a little too risky, but a follow-up suggestion to head over to South London to catch …

A great overview of the state of the modern web from a UX and environmental perspective. Gerry notes the impact of image and videos (and JavaScript) on websites …

As our time in Cumbria comes to a necessary close, it felt right to head out for our longest local walk yet. We drove down to the Middle Gelt viaduct only a few minutes outside of the village), …

Each day the weather gets a bit more wintery, which can only mean one thing: snow on the high tops! Both the lakes and the distant Scottish mountains had been peppered with white drifts overnight, so …

With London in Tier 4, Cumbria heading for Tier 3, and the Christmas "free for all" period cancelled, we've found ourselves a little stranded in Cumbria. We'd always planned to go back within the …

Time to make some use of the extended freedoms we still enjoy in Cumbria, with a road trip out to the Solway. It's the first time I've been around the industrial parks on the north edge of Carlisle …

Monks Wood Wilderness was a regularly ploughed field 60 years ago. Then (for whatever reason) it wound up without clear ownership and became an environmental study well ahead of its time: a rewilding …

Styled Components have tripped me up a few times today, but I ended up learning some useful tricks as a result.

By reordering the steps that I go through when capturing photos I've been able to make my overall workflow more efficient and much more enjoyable.

I've been fascinated by the Quagga Project since I was a kid, back when they were (rumoured) to be keeping a small herd of the creatures at the University of Cape Town, visible on drives around the …

Apparently, ARIA live regions don't play nicely with React. Whilst they work fine in many browsers, they simply don't function in VoiceOver without some workarounds.