What’s This Beetle?

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Supplementing this morning’s work on ‘A Knight’s Tale’ were my posts ‘Auntie Gwen’ and ‘One For Rebeckah’,

from which this photograph was included.

This afternoon the weather was dry, overcast, and humid, with the sun sometimes sneaking a peek at what I was up to. This was watering, dead-heading, and a little weeding.

I then experienced considerable difficulty in loading new photographs into WordPress.

Bee on hebe

Pollen-dusted bees favoured the pink and purple hebes;

New Bed garden view

Deep red Bishop of Llandaff dahlias nod to the lilies in the New Bed. (See Head Gardener’s comment below – we don’t know the name of the dahlia, but it’s not the Bishop)

Gaura

We live in hope that this gaura, a plant with which we have so far been unsuccessful, will flourish in the Weeping Birch Bed.

'Pineapple' plant

On the other hand, Jackie has had great success with what we call ‘Pineapple’ plants, prised up from paving and placed in the Kitchen Bed.

Early this evening the sun reemerged and shed new light on the garden, bringing, incidentally, a cessation to loading problems. Maybe this was because the Head Gardener had returned and there was no further reason to sulk.

Echinaceas

A glow was lent to echinaceas

Phlox

and to phlox in the palm bed;

Crocosmia Lucifer

to the crocosmias, like this Lucifer;

Day lilies

to a much wider range of day lilies than we remember having;

Clematis 1Clematis 2

and to various clematises,

Clematis 3

including this one in which the Head Gardener can justifiably take great pride. As long-term readers will know, what is now the Rose Garden, was, three years ago, a concrete-bound, overgrown kitchen garden of sorts. This is where this raggedy specimen started life. Jackie lifted the wizened little plant, placed it in a pot adopted by the front garden trellis, and returned it to its roots in its birthplace.

Strawberries

Inherited wild strawberries are bearing fruit for the first time.

Beetle on liliesBeetle on lilies 2

As I passed the sweetly scented lilies in the New Bed, an iridescent green glint in the centre of one of the blooms flashed enticingly. Does anyone have any idea as to the beetle’s identity?

Miss Coleoptera on Twitter offers this suggestion: ‘Probably a Cetonia aurata or a Protaetia’. Uma offers this, in his comment below: ‘To me that looks like a Bombardier Beetle. Or perhaps the fellow is an oil beetle’. Google images confirms Cetonia aurata, which Oglach, below, has named as a chafer beetle..

If I had any sense I wouldn’t struggle when there’s a blip in the system. I’d just ignore it until it went away.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi and savoury rice topped with an omelette. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Georges DuBoeuf Fleurie 2016.

 

 

51 comments

  1. I have no idea but it looks like a chunk of animated paua shell ……. Glad to hear Jackie has returned and wp is now behaving – sometimes it simply doesn’t and it’s best to just go off and have a cup of tea.

  2. The beetle looks like our Japanese beetle, Derrick. They are very destructive to plants and flowers.
    Oh my! Your photos today are fabulous! Such brilliant colors. Thanks for taking the time to share them with your fans.

    1. Very many thanks, Jill. ‘fans’ I like :). The beetle has been identified as a Cetona aurata which does look very like your Japanese variety.

  3. Beautiful pictures of the flowers, feeling so very jealous this morning, it’s -1C here in Geelong this morning, and getting out of bed on this Sunday morning is becoming a frightful task.

  4. Such a pleasant tour. Do you have rhododendron and azaleas? Two of my favorites. We planted our 59th, maybe 60th hydrangea and transplanted an older one. We always look for bargains and bought this new hydrangea at Home Depot (do you have HD?) for $15, a half price sale. Now, I’m snacking on graham cracker and milk, 2017, I hope 😂.

    1. Thanks very much, Steve. We do have several of both plants, but they are over now. We don’t have HD, but Jackie is great at getting bargains from supermarkets like Tesco who virtually give their plants away after keeping them without water. She always revives them.

      1. I read about TESCO and it has quite a history, seemingly both revered and reviled in Great Britain. My wife is the same when it comes to buying plants, she looks for ones that are ‘ugly’ on the store shelf, buys them at a discount and ‘nurtures’ them back to health. We would never pay full price for our Hydrangeas. I hope you found and read one of my stories from a couple of years ago, ‘The Garden and The Gardener’, a love story, her love of gardening and my reluctance to the same. If you can’t find it, send me your email and I’ll forward it. (Stephen.Bottcher@gmail.com). Have a wonderful day. Big holiday in the States this week, anniversary of our independence from foreign dominance a couple hundred plus years ago. You may have read about it…😉 (steve)

  5. Sorry to hear about your struggles, Derrick. My recent problems with images were down to the fact that I had a Pinterest button activated on my browser. I can see you haven’t got the same problem (it was putting save…save…save on the bottom of my posts) but it shows that things are connected in a way it’s sometimes difficult to fathom without help.

  6. The flowers look exceptional in the magical evening light that ushered in the Head Gardener and forced open the portals of WordPress. To me that looks like a Bombardier Beetle. Or perhaps the fellow is an oil beetle.

    1. Many thanks, Uma. I should do more in the evening light. I have included this suggestion, but in fact it is a Cetona aurata (thanks to Miss Coleoptera on Twitter.

  7. Good to hear Jackie has returned and all is well! Such beautiful flower photos, Derrick.

    Your Auntie Gwen sounds like a very interesting person. 🙂

  8. Have to say that the Bishop of Llanduff is not yet in flower (it is a single flower type), the dahlia in the picture is ‘unknown’ variety.

  9. It’s a long way from here to there – and I haven’t read any of the other comments – my my guess is Green Scarab probably Rose Chafer but I don’t have my book handy so can’t look up the Latin name

  10. Gorgeous photo of the bee on the hebes. I had never heard of hebes (except as short for heebie-jeebies) so had to look it up.

  11. It’s obviously not a Liverpudian Beetle.
    This bit struck me as strange; “weather was dry, overcast, and humid, “; here in Australia when it’s humid it is invariably very moist. and we sweat like porcines

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