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Beetles
ritalane
Posts: 7
Can someone tell me how I have got large beetles in my hanging baskets, would they have come out of the compost?
0
Posts
Can you be more specific about them ritalane? They could be vine weevil adults which only crawl, but many beetles fly.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I know they are not wine weevil, when you look at these they are quite large and oval shaped and a shell that looks very hard, some people might think they are coach roaches, this is the third one I have found in this basket, and I have never come across these in all the years I have been doing baskets, when you disturbed them you think they are dead then they will run away. Thanks.
How big are they? Could you get a photo?
Or are they woodlice? That's another possibility.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
they are not wood lice they are about 4 size as big and the shell is very hard like I said some people would call then coackroaches sorry I never thought to take a photo I will next time. If the beetle falls upside it looks like it got a lot of spindle legs I would say just over 1" in length.
If black, they sound like lesser stag beetles which can fly (just!) to get to high places where they can waft their pheromones in the wind to attact a mate. They lay eggs in rotting wood which the larvae spend several years inside before emerging as adult beetles which then mate and start the cycle again. Like most beetles, they are a gardeners friend.
Do they look like this?
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/lesser-stag-beetle
Last edited: 21 May 2017 11:50:51
Thanks Bob for getting back to me, sorry it doesn't look like that pictures they are brown in colour, and quite big and have a large shell. If I can get a photo I will next time I see one, but I have had 3 of these large beetles so far in my hanging basket, but so far not in the other baskets. I know what common garden beetle look like and they are nothing like that, they are a lot bigger.
Look up cockchafer.
H-C
Cockchafers?
http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/common-cockchafer aka known as May bugs or June bugs.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hi, susiekew7 thanks for your reply but could not open your reply.
Dovefromabove you were right its is a cockchafers where have they come from, would they have been in my compost when I bought it? or have they come from some where else