What is it? A girthful and thriving churchyard yew that tree experts have declared, after 24 years of research, to be the oldest living thing in London. Where is it? In the yard of St. Andrew's, Totteridge, a short trek uphill from Totteridge & Whetstone station at the far northeast branch of the Northern Line. Not somewhere you're likely to stumble on during your lunch break, no, but well worth a special trip for......

Well here’s a fine thing – Londonist starts its Nature-ist column, and then suddenly Boris is all over it, rattling on about valuing London’s green spaces and maximising your local park’s potential. It all seems to come from a largely marketing-led website called Natural England. We’re sure they mean well, but we’re afraid we find that using the terms ‘strategic outcomes’ and 'nature' in the same sentence doesn’t seem right. And as for giving......

What is it? The Surrey Canal Walk, a bit of historical-but-filled-in canal. Full of green stuff. Sort of Nature-ist meets Londonist’s Back Passage. Where is it? It runs from just behind Peckham library up to the entrance to Burgess Park – a distance of 1.1km. Walkers and cyclists share the route. Londonist actually wanted to borrow one of those whizzo motorised skateboards and video it for you – but we is scaredy-cats. Why has......

What is it? The Barbican Conservatory, a glass-covered green hideout in the heart of the City. Nature-ist's mission is to uncover the unconventional bits of wilderness that poke through London's rugged urban landscape. And a conservatory doesn't strictly count. But when we're talking the capital's second biggest conservatory after Kew, and a place that seems little known by most Londoners, then we thought we'd make an exception. Where is it? Er, the Barbican, surprisingly.......

What is it? Walking down a rail-side industrial backstreet, an ornate wrought iron entrance with busy events and wildlife sightings boards assures passers-by that this is no ordinary green patch. Within lie a shoebox wetland, a wildflower meadow and mixed woodlands, attracting avian, mammalian, amphibious and arthropod refugees from far and wide. Where is it? A little two acre patch of Farthing Wood in brownfields Camden, Camley Street is a haven known to many......

What is it? Railway sidings. Actually, an embankment. Fenced off. Unused but for the odd fly-tipper. Seldom visited. Unloved and unnoticed. ‘Cept of course by your roving Londonist reporter. Where is it? Now in London we all live near railways in some way or another. So we’d like you to read this as any-railway in any-street. But if you must know ours is in Peckham, off Lyndhurst Way, at the entrance of a mini......

What is it? We happened to stumble by accident across Gillespie Park, a little-known North London nature reserve, a few years ago, and have loved it ever since. Where is it? Squeezed neatly into a little plot of land in N5 above Arsenal tube and below a busy train line, amidst Highbury's densely-packed Victorian rows. Islington is the London borough with the least amount of parkland, so Gillespie offers a bucolic break for locals.......

What is it? Despite its name, Belsize Park is overwhelmingly residential. But the few patches of green that can be found hereabouts all have their secrets to tell. The gardens on Antrim Grove are no exception, containing two motifs of a vanished London (see below). The site was formerly occupied by school tennis courts, but was converted into a public space shortly after WWII. According to Camden Council, the neighbouring allotments (27 plots) have......

A blogs-eye view of the little bits of London that Nature left behind What is it? The London Wildlife Gardening Centre seedling plantation. (We didn't actually know this: we had to ring the council, who put us in touch with their ecology officer, who was extraordinarily helpful. How cool is that, to have an ecology officer just waiting to answer inane blogger questions?! Of course he does lots of good ecological stuff as well.)......