Garden Project May 2025

 With this last week's warm temperatures, a  lot of flowers have come into bloom while others are dying away. It is definitely Red Campion time making wonderful splashes of colour everywhere contrasting with the blue Alkanet and Centaurea. Buttercups have largely taken over from Cowslips in the meadow, the Bogbean is in bloom in the pond, the Perennial Alyssum is attracting lots of insects along with the three species of Spurge  etc!!

Life on Comfrey and Alkanet

The Alkanet and White Comfrey are in full bloom in the garden and provide home and food to a very large variety of species. Here are a few. The Rhingia rostrata has very impressive mouthparts for slurping up nectar!

New Shieldbug Species in Garden

It has been confirmed that what I thought was a Green Shieldbug coming out of its brown winter state, is the Gorse Shieldbug, Piezodorus lituratus. A couple of Box Bugs were active, along with lots of Bee Flies and a Carder bee, photographed with its proboscis deep in an Alkanet flower - the latter is an excellent insect plant, flowering early and attracting lots of bee species.