Bugs and Beetles

Tina Mattocks

I have a few campanulas and discovered these small shiny bronze coloured beetles  I think I have identified them as a species of Brachypnoea.  I cannot find anything out about them and wondered if I should leave them or destroy.

nutcutlet

The majority of garden insects do no harm at all. I don't kill much, I might squash the odd slug or snail but never use poisons. Some sort of balance is achieved, I don't suffer much damage.

Dovefromabove

Beetles form a large part of the hedgehog's diet - if we go found destroying everything it's no wonder hedgehogs are in short supply 

Steve 309

...but bugs may be a different matter - aphids being the worst culprits.  Although they do feed blue tits.....

nutcutlet

the blue tits are part of the balance Steve. But once you decide you're going to eliminate part of that balance it all goes ............

find your own expression, I deleted the one I chose

Steve 309

They certainly are.  It'd be great to have a garden in which there are a few pests, controlled by a few natural predators and all of nature in harmony.  The trouble is, as I've mentioned elsewhere, gardens aren't natural - we want just a few types of plant to grow, often in areas where they don't belong, so we have to put up with the consequences - or use non-natural techniques to look after them.

nutcutlet

seems to work for me

 

Steve 309

A colleauge, and also a keen gardener,  several years ago said to me (after I'd related to him some incident of mayhem wrought on my plants), "Steve", he said, "your garden is a constant battle against nature".  Which it wasn't really, but I took his point.

I like to work with nature, but as someone once said, "you should have seen what it was like when nature had it to itself".

nutcutlet

We should have seen what it was like but it's all a long time ago now. My garden was wild and jungly when I arrived but it wasn't nature. It was what happens when former agricultural land and rubbish tip are combined and neglected for 30 years.