With our Nature-ist column now firmly established and a special new gardening friend, it seems Londonist is growing greener by the week. This weekend a few botanical tales caught our eye. The first is tree-shaped: could a Totteridge yew be the oldest tree in London? At 2000 years old it’s got to be a pretty good contender – unless you know better… And then a couple of stories of what not to grow. A court......

The RHS are busy bees – bet you didn’t know that they have up to seven flower shows a year in London alone. Well, there’s one on right now: unusually this one is not at the Royal Horticultural Halls but has rather gone back to its, um, roots at Inner Temple. Inner Temple is one of those bits of hidden London that you could blink and miss, but it’s not only got real pretty grounds,......

Roof gardens were catapulted into the London spotlight this weekend as Boris proclaimed them his secret weapon in the war on climate change - or rather, to help prevent flooding in the capital by soaking up rainwater. Brilliant, say we, let's have more of them. But there's a slight problem, then, in what to do with it. With ever increasing interest in growing your own food, whether in your own patch or as part......

With waiting lists for London allotments spiralling into 6 years or more, the new report Growing Round the Houses, from food and farming charity, Sustain and the Women's Environmental Network, is very welcome. It advocates planning communal food growing into social housing and transforming unused estate ground into fertile kitchen gardens with huge growbags. Which is a lovely idea, of course, as long as there's genuine community buy in, the local kids don't vandalise......

A small Camden charity, Hare Krishna Food for All, was named Novelis Community Recycing Project of the year at The Resource Awards last week. We hadn't heard of them before today but nosing around their website we're really rather in awe of their humanitarian and environmental efforts in central London. It's a really simple idea. Food For All provides disadvantaged people with free hot meals in Camden, Kings Cross and Holborn, by collecting food......

The Chelsea Flower show kicks off tomorrow and is encouraging Londoners to welcome Ratty into their gardens. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Kenneth Graeme’s The Wind In The Willows, the River and Rowing Museum will be setting up shop to tell London gardeners how to make their urban refuges water vole friendly. Graeme’s classic follows the story of Ratty the water vole. The cute critters are now declining sharply in numbers. The Chelsea......