This morning when I was having breakfast out on the veranda - as I do every day - I gazed around from this high vantage point to admire the colour that is in my garden. My spoon dropped into my dish as I spied the crepe mytle. Beside the driveway the crepe mytle was in full bloom, better than it has ever been before - smothered with the deepest cherise coloured flowers. This morning it was brown! A layer of petals lay on the gravel below but not one petal remained on the tree. I left my breakfast and rushed down to take a closer look. Sure enough the flowers had all gone and there was no evidence as to why - until I looked down to the flowers below. Resting on all the green leaves were the culprits - small orange beetles (with very full tummies).
There is nothing to be done. There is no point spraying when the damage is done.
I walked across the drive to see if any of the flowers over there had been touched. This is what greeted me.
The first thing I noticed was one of my miniature roses - it has decided to be a large rose and has grown quite vigorously and now is about waist high but still with miniature roses on it. The grubs obviously like the sweet soft wood of the growing tip as well as the pretty roses. Click on the photos to see the damage more clearly.
Then I looked over at the big dahlias that are creating such a dramatic splash of colour in the garden and they too look a real mess. Here are a couple of photos of two of them - I wont upset you by telling you how many flowers are like this.
I was so mad that I went inside and grabbed a can of flying insect spray and sprayed the flower heads. One squirt made the outside insects drop straight away and twice as many that were deep in the petals came crawling out to escape. I know that I am not solving the problem at all - there are more insects in the trees and grass and the entire garden but I took real pleasure in attacking these ones! I do not normally use any insecticides on my garden - I rely on nature to provide the control so I have plenty of birds, insects and lizards and spiders and so on that do no harm at all and I do not want to destroy them. I shall be back outside tomorrow with a pair of secateurs to cut off all the dead flowers to make sure that they do not continue to poison the insects!
Just before dark I decided to take a look at another part of the garden - I remembered that there was a small crepe myrtle that I had grown from a cutting of the first one by the drive. Sure enough, no petals on that - but the horrible little invaders were smothering the leaves so I just had to call out the rest of the family to come and take a look. I dashed inside for the camera but had to use flash since it was almost dark. Take a look at these beasties.
They were as thick as this throughout the garden - so you can see how pointless it would be for me to try and spray them all! I hope that they do not stay very long now they have cleaned my garden - do you realise that they have even started eating the geranium flowers?
I had a sudden thought. What about my pink flowering gum? I looked up. NO! They had eaten those too.
The bugs are still inside the cups of the flowers so by morning there will be no colour left on the tree at all. So now I am feeling very sad. I put all this effort into creating colour and what do I do? I attract not only the birds that enjoy the nectar in them but the horrible little creatures that destroy everything in their path. My garden will look like everyone else's by morning. Just green. Sigh.....
AJ
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