Monday, April 19, 2010

Garden invaders

Lily beetle

Non-native pests are very common in our garden. Spotted today, the infamous Lily beetle. I suspect if I grew lilies I would have descended into hysterics at this point. My (large) rosemary bush is also home to a colony of Rosemary beetles - they've been there a couple of years now. I read somewhere (can't remember where) that they were unlikely to cause extensive defoliation so I left them. I figured there wasn't much of a battle to be had in London, but my rosemary bush is looking pretty battered and nibbled this spring (see the bottom image). I think it might be time the invaders took a long walk off a short cliff...

Rosemary beetle
Rosemary beetle

2 comments:

  1. It's also been a very long time since I saw a native, rather than a harlequin, ladybird in our garden: http://www.harlequin-survey.org/. The rosemary beetles are quite pretty, but by rosemary looks so raggedy now. They like lavender and sage too.

    Those flatworms sound fascinating - must google them immediately!

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  2. The Lily beetle is so pretty, its gorgeous. I suspect this is the wrong approach to bugs. Thanks for stopping by my blog, I loved your comments, hope to see you soon,

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