A dilemma

Posts

• ForTheBees Posts: 168

  August 2018

  I've been relocating mine from the rose bush by my patio to a sacreficial dog rose that I'm probably going to remove anyway.

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• Palustris Posts: 4,307

  August 2018

  Ditch the roses (I hate roses)keep the caterpillars.
  

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• B3 Posts: 27,505

  August 2018

  Aren't they those sawfly things?

  In London. Keen but lazy.

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• ForTheBees Posts: 168

  August 2018

  While inspecting my plants this evening, I spotted a tiny catapillar on my heather*. I was going to leave it be anyway but a few seconds later a parasitic wasp turned up and I believe laid it's egg in it. Problem solved!
  
  * Calluna vulgaris /Ling heather /Firefly.

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• Big Bang Inflation Posts: 50

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  As @B3 said, they're Rose Sawfly larva, not caterpillars.

  
  

  I get them on my roses.
  

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• Valerie 7 Posts: 59

  August 2018

  In that case I will clear them off.
  

  I like my old fashioned 'blousy' rose and would rather not see it suffer, but might have been persuaded to put up with it for the sake of butterflies.

  Thanks for the advice.
  

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• nutcutlet Posts: 27,445

  August 2018

  It's all part of nature, we shouldn't just be preserving the pretty ones.

  
  
  In the sticks near Peterborough

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• B3 Posts: 27,505

  August 2018

  I pick the host leaves off complete with sawflies and chuck them in the back of the flower bed.

  In London. Keen but lazy.

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• Dovefromabove Posts: 88,147

  August 2018

  I leave them be ... they don't do a lot of damage to healthy plants and the bluetits eat most of them anyway.  What's a few leaf skeletons between friends? 

  
  Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Lyn Posts: 23,190

  August 2018

  Or skeletons in the cupboard, no difference Dove

  Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 
  
  

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