Wildlife in our gardens

Davesnave

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I'd never heard of these, thanks!

I don't specialise in verbascums, but I am trying to grow a few for the first time this year! Just hope the caterpillar doesn't find them and sticks to the buddleia instead

It will, being a bit limited in movement terms, but its brothers & sisters probably won't! However, verbascums are cheap n'cheerful if you raise them from seed. I can recommend Dobies Sunset Shades:

http://www.dobies.co.uk/pd_428831_Verbascum_Sunset_Shades_Seeds.htm

and also Verbascum Blattaria Alba, which self-seeds nicely.

Of course there are lots of named varieties too, including one of mine, but they usually cost a bomb in garden centres, and not all of them are as perennial as they're cracked up to be. I'd reckon 3-4 years for any of them is good.

Lotus-eater

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I spotted my first caterpillar of the year this evening! :j

Me and the little gardener have been chasing and squashing them on our 3 jostaberry and 3 gooseberry bushes for weeks if not months. Feels like it anyway :rolleyes:

Who was it advised to try vaseline on the stems? It doesn't work dude!

~Chameleon~

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Me and the little gardener have been chasing and squashing them on our 3 jostaberry and 3 gooseberry bushes for weeks if not months. Feels like it anyway :rolleyes:

Who was it advised to try vaseline on the stems? It doesn't work dude!

There possibly are more in my garden but I just haven't noticed them. I keep checking my cabbages for the tiny green ones of the cabbage white butterfly but so far not spotted any. This one caught my eye as it was so pretty and I'd not seen one like it before.

I'm slightly disappointed it's a moth larvae though as there's a distinct shortage of butterflys around this year for some reason, and being as I'd found it on my buddleia I hoped it might be some pretty butterfly larvae. Explains why I couldn't find it in google as I was looking for the wrong thing :doh: :rotfl:

UK007BullDog

A friend of mine has a problem. She feeds birds with birds feeders bought from the RSPB and everything went well until a neighbour put up a fake but very realistic looking heron on his side of the fence, with its head and beak (sticking over the fence on her side) pointing towards the bird feeders. All the birds stopped visiting but some of the smaller birds came back after a day. We guess he is upset about the pigeons which is nothing she can do about. All the feeders put up are for the small birds only and the big ones cannot get at them, specially not the pigeons. Anyway the person has removed the fake bird now and the real birds are returning, but not like before. Why does the person not just say to her what his problem is with her feeding the birds? His Cat is crapping and digging up all of her garden so she cannot even grow herbs or nice plants.

She told me that she took one of the feeders down as a concession but still feels bullied. In fact she is so upset that she might just plant a big tree in her garden and as far as we know he cannot stop her from doing that. It will stop his view going into her garden and give the birds a natural perch. She is just investigating what the legal situation is. She suspects that the neighbour is using some sort of electronic device to scare the birds away as the birds got used to the fake bird quite quickly, but now just come sporadically. I told her to get an electronic cat repeller like I have to stop the cats using the garden as a toilet, just to get even.

I think they need to talk but he seems unable to do so, but she is not an aggressive person. I kind of feel responsible as I started her up with this birdwatching malarkey.

Donna

Lotus-eater

Thank god for google safe search! I've just had to google "tit bird" and it came up with the right pages and not smut
I was trying to identify a bird in the garden, twas a coal tit apparently.

Just seen a big brown bird, seemed to be twice as big as a blackbird, but about the same shape. Looked a bit like a young BB tbh, but just looked so big! Not sure what it was, didn't seem to have the spots of a thrush, mind you, can't remember when I last saw one of those.
I remember all the broken snail shells in my grandparents garden near to a rock that a thrush used to use as a tool.

Not sure if I should tell you this, cos I might be laughed out of the thread, but I did see a big cat not that long ago.

Davesnave

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Thank god for google safe search! I've just had to google "tit bird" and it came up with the right pages and not smut
I was trying to identify a bird in the garden, twas a coal tit apparently.

Reminds me of a time at school, when a rather naive colleague decided to Google 'Babe,' because his class was writing a review of the film based on 'The Sheep Pig' for Literacy Hour!

......You'd have been even safer with Paridae.:rotfl:

KAAT_LADY

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I spotted my first caterpillar of the year this evening! :j

It's very pretty and has cleverly camouflaged itself on a buddleia stem. I don't think I've seen one like this before, any ideas what it might be please?

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/chameleon.photos/WhatSThis/photo#5211095421251316898

Dont Know what it is but it is very nice.:j

its no wonder we dont see a lot of butterflies if people keep squashing the
caterpillars. :mad: We get a lot of birds in our garden and also a sparrowhawk which seems to like starlings best but when she cant get them she tries for the youngsters of any variety.
We now have a carrion crow and that seems to chase all the birds:eek:

Davesnave

KAAT_LADY wrote: »

Dont Know what it is but it is very nice.:j

its no wonder we dont see a lot of butterflies if people keep squashing the
caterpillars. :mad: We get a lot of birds in our garden and also a sparrowhawk which seems to like starlings best but when she cant get them she tries for the youngsters of any variety.
We now have a carrion crow and that seems to chase all the birds:eek:

Unfortunately, if you don't deal with certain larvae you don't have much of your plant left!

Last year, berberis sawfly defoliated one bush completely in a matter of 24 hours. If I'd just shrugged and said 'Never mind,' the pupae would be in the soil right now, waiting to hatch into adults and start the whole thing over again. The bush has only just recovered.

Last year I also got iris sawfly for the first time:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profiles0605/irissawfly.asp

These guys completely shredded my water irises, so this year I was ready for them - they make excellent robin food!

How a gardener should react really depends on the scale of the attack and how it affects the plant; it isn't always neccessary to do anything. For example, most gardeners I know would ignore the saw fly larvae that shred Solomon's Seal, because they don't attack when the plant is flowering and at its most useful. They also don't threaten its health.

In the end, a balance has to be struck. If my irises always ended-up chewed to shreds, I'd soon stop growing them. What would be the point of having something that, as soon as it reached its peak, was completely wrecked? The damsel flies that emerge from the pond on the irises want them to stay, so it's better that I pick off the sawfly caterpillars.

KAAT_LADY

DAVESNAVE as you would have seen if you had read it I was talking about butterflies and moths not sawflies which are a bl----y nuisance.

I put the post as butterflies and moths are becoming scarce

SEE

Ladybirds I've had one in my garden all year Where are they? Have they all been pinched by people who sell the larvae:D