Alan Titchmarsh, a gardening aficionado, revels within the array of wildlife that frequents his quaint Hampshire backyard. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that inviting wildlife into your backyard comes with its share of drawbacks.

The beloved gardener, who will grace our screens this Sunday on ITV’s Love Your Weekend, had modest expectations for his wildlife pond, dug about 15 years in the past: “Newts and dragonflies, damselflies and maybe the odd kingfisher.”

In a chat with BBC Gardeners’ World Journal, Alan shared that for a time, his pond was a bustling hub for numerous mini-beasts – till an surprising visitor made an look.

“However then, from someplace,” Alan mused, “most likely on the webbed toes of a visiting duck, roach arrived.”

Roach, resilient freshwater fish that may develop as much as 14 inches and survive underneath difficult situations, are sometimes the final to fade from polluted waterways, in keeping with scientists, stories Gloucestershire Reside.

Regardless of their hardiness, these fish have voracious appetites, which Alan initially welcomed: “Considering it was simply one other type of wildlife to gleefully add to my record, I purchased some fish meals,” he recounted.

“Every time I sprinkle it on the water, ” Alan continued, “the floor turns into one thing harking back to that scene within the James Bond film the place the baddie is eaten by piranhas. The as soon as limpid pool turns into a foaming cauldron for totally 30 seconds earlier than all of the meals disappears.”

Regrettably, not glad with Alan’s periodic choices of fish meals, the roach have additionally worn out the insect inhabitants that had introduced him such pleasure throughout his pond’s early years.

In an try to revive nature’s equilibrium, Alan has even fostered the expansion of an alder above the pond, making it less complicated for any passing kingfisher to detect the roach lurking under.

But Alan’s most devastating wildlife encounter, he reveals, was the destruction of his cherished cherry blossom.

“My small however now 20-year previous plantation of the pure-white ‘Shirotae’ cherry usually provides rise to gasps in early April,” he explains.

“This yr we went away for the weekend simply earlier than it was resulting from open. We returned and excitedly walked across the again of our barn to soak up the anticipated view..”

Nevertheless, the scene that confronted Alan and his spouse Alison was “pathetic,” he reveals. “The welter of buds had been decimated by wooden pigeons.”

He described how the one blooms that survived have been the tiny ones on the very ends of slender branches that could not help the load of a ravenous wooden pigeon: “Heartbreaking,” he concluded.

Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh airs on Sundays on ITV1 at 9.30am