Non alpines: other types of gardening: growing veg.etc for instance

[Roma]

I think I may have to give up growing autumn fruiting raspberries.  If I'd got round to picking off the ripe and over ripe berries it might have helped.
Can anyone identify the ladybird?  I've not seen this one before.

[Maggi Young]

Smart white spotted ladybird Roma. Never seen one of those here.

http://www.bugsandweeds.co.uk/ladybirds.html

Orange ladybird
4.5 – 6mm (similar size to small harlequin)
Orange
12 or 16 white spots   Halyzia sedecimguttata

Cream-spot ladybird
4 – 5mm (smaller than harlequin)
Maroon-brown with exactly 14 cream spots  Calvia quattuordecimguttata

[Roma]

I was checking the ladybird survey site www.ladybird-survey.org and found the orange ladybird, the cream spotted and the 18 spot all very similar.  Down the page a bit were three forms of the 10 spotted and one looked quite close to the one I saw.  When I tried to photograph it it kept going round to the other side of the plant and I had to go to the end of the row to get round.  I got it on my hand but I did not have my specs with me and it was moving rather fast so I couldn't count the spots or study it in detail.
A closer view. 

[annew]

Well, if that's half the ladybird, it's a ten-spot!

[Maggi Young]

Well, if that's half the ladybird, it's a ten-spot!

Crikey- Roma's  perhaps discovered a new species!

[Roma]

Identifying less common ladybirds seems quite difficult if you are not an expert.  Lots of them vary in colour and number of spots.  The two sites I have looked at do not say much about distribution so I'm not sure which species are found in this area.  I am inclined to go with the 10 spot.

[fermi de Sousa]

This is definitely not an alpine! A purple flowered Cardoon/Globe Artichoke - the offspring of a cardoon and a green artichoke which was supposed to be purple (so probably a seedling)
cheers
fermi

[frits.kp]

Looking good all year is Coronilla valentina subsp glauca 'Citrina'
scented flowers, evergreen, flowers for 10 months, small shrub, no maintenance.
the perfect shrub for any garden.

Question is can ANYONE find anything bad to say about this shrub?

[ranunculus]

It's a tad reserved at parties! 

[Palustris]

It dies!

[Maggi Young]

It dies!

That's what I've heard, too. And not like all of us, after a long life - (after all, we will all die in the end, none of us get out of this alive) but here this plant  tends to die after hard weather and, even in "prime" conditions it tends to be rather short -lived.

[Anthony Darby]

I was checking the ladybird survey site www.ladybird-survey.org and found the orange ladybird, the cream spotted and the 18 spot all very similar.  Down the page a bit were three forms of the 10 spotted and one looked quite close to the one I saw.  When I tried to photograph it it kept going round to the other side of the plant and I had to go to the end of the row to get round.  I got it on my hand but I did not have my specs with me and it was moving rather fast so I couldn't count the spots or study it in detail.
A closer view.

I would say cream-spot ladybird based of the pattern of spots.

[John85]

Silvanberry
Somebody growing it?
Is it worth a place in the fruitcage?
What about the flavour?

[Maggi Young]

Silvanberry
Somebody growing it?
Is it worth a place in the fruitcage?
What about the flavour?

So embarrassing- I haven't heard of it!

[John85]

Roses
After the cold and wet spring nature had to cope with,I 'd like to know which roses are still looking fine with a foliage without fungal diseases.
Here some rugosa hybrids are still fine but not " Agnes"