All this Winter

Love the first pic, very nice

Lovely pics, Bernhard.

I love the water collecting rose and the one with the visitors. I have never heard of marmalade flies. Does anyone else know them?

We call them hoverflies here Abbi

They are great predators and feast on aphids so if you can encourage them do so. Their young like plants like Queen Anne's Lace, Fennel, Angelica, Yarrow to name a few for food and shelter. If you can plant these near your roses it will help enormously in pest control.

Lovely to see you yesterday Abbi!

Hey sister, go sister, soul sister, flow sister ......

here is the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]to this kind of hoverfly. There is a plenty of it in our garden, it's difficult to shot a photo without them, also Aphids are rare

musical regards

Bernhard

Well, I am amazed! I thought they were bees and Bemo was being funny calling them Marmalade flies. Then I looked at them again when you all started discussing them and I thought "Nah, they are European Wasps."
They look big to me for a hover fly. Are they as big as a wasp Bemo?

Dee, I agree they look like Australian bees or English wasps

Billndee wrote:Well, I am amazed! I thought they were bees and Bemo was being funny calling them Marmalade flies. Then I looked at them again when you all started discussing them and I thought "Nah, they are European Wasps."
They look big to me for a hover fly. Are they as big as a wasp Bemo?

the last two Marmalades I showed are a litlle bit smaller than our wasps. There are other species of hoverflies, which will fit the size of common bees ore wasps (keep in mind that wesps are also different in size), like this one, eating pollen of 'Sorbet' :

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I must complete that all species are really very harmless

cheers Bernhard

They only look to be about 1cm long BD... if you consider the flower would be somewhere around 7cm wide.

For those of you interested in being more green in your rose gardens this is what the larvae look like (just so you don't squish them thinking they are a grub eating your roses):



It's only the larvae that eat aphids. This one was photographed last season on my 'Climbing Iceberg' and is probably about 1cm long. They are voracious predators of aphids as the adults lay their eggs in aphid colonies. This one was in a small beading jar about 3cm in diametre with a whole stack of aphids. It polished off all of them (more than 50) in about 2 days. It then formed a coccoon that would have normally dropped to the ground to emerge after the larvae had pupated.

They grab the aphid by the leg and hoist them into the air and then proceed to suck the aphid-juice out through their legs. You can see in this photo the aphid is starting to collapse.

I can only say: 'Enjoy this meal'

It's funny you know... biological control is such a great thing but sometimes one can work against the other...

In the same section of 'Climbing Iceberg' there were tiny parasitic wasps as well as lacewings and ladybirds. Some of the aphids shown here were parasitised by the parasitic wasp and then the hoverfly larvae came along and sucked them dry eating both the aphid and the parasitic wasp larvae. Ladybirds and lacewings will also eat aphids that have been parasitised, wasp larvae and all... it's a dog eat dog world in the world of biological control

Simon wrote:....... it's a dog eat dog world in the world of biological control

not only in the world of biological control, ...there are many places where this happens

I am fascinated, and I must get a magnifying glass onto my roses next summer to see this little world of violent activity.

again the bergain, I was peculating if it's possibly 'Angela', the cuttings are continously bloomimg, while th original plant, which is grown as a climber, shows only slightly 2nd flowers in the autumn:

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'Winchster Cathedral' showing the 'Mary Rose' genes:
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cheers Bernhard

Just reading the last two pages here for tonight. Very interesting about the aphids and wasps. I remeber seeing one of these wasps now in Jenny's garden in Canowindra some years ago, and thinking it was a cute little different type bee.
I like Angela to put in my bunches of roses, Bernhard. I like the last rose photo you have here.

rosemeadow wrote:...I like the last rose photo you have here.

it's one of my first 2007 seedlings, just click the link above it.

Its got alot more petals now. I like it alot !

G'day rosefreaks

the bestseller overall , the roselovers must be stupid:

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it is the best BS distributor you can imagine. I will clear the border from it, because I want peace in my garden.

a better one for compensation, lavender dream:
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Peace be with you , but not 'Peace'
Bernhard

I have a Clb Peace, it has nothing underneath it. I reckon it is born with BS.

Billndee, looks a little like AC's Lorraine Lee Clg. If you don't have it then I suggest you give it a try. Extremely healthy and blooms in late autumn , winter and early spring. Definately a no fuss, low maintainence climber. I know that's a heavy statement but if it does that here it will be a real winner in your climate.

Ozeboy wrote:Billndee, looks a little like AC's Lorraine Lee Clg. If you don't have it then I suggest you give it a try. Extremely healthy and blooms in late autumn , winter and early spring. Definately a no fuss, low maintainence climber. I know that's a heavy statement but if it does that here it will be a real winner in your climate.

G'day Ozeboy Please help this amnesic old lady! I can't remember what rose (picture?) you are referring to!
I do have Lorraine Lee.She is only small and young as yet but I do like her a lot.

roseman wrote:I have a Clb Peace, it has nothing underneath it. .....

nothing ?, You mean the leaves have all gone? So mine looks better than yours

Yes yours does look better, mine only has a little underwear, some mint and a bit of weed,

Ozeboy wrote:Billndee, looks a little like AC's Lorraine Lee Clg. If you don't have it then I suggest you give it a try. Extremely healthy and blooms in late autumn , winter and early spring. Definately a no fuss, low maintainence climber. I know that's a heavy statement but if it does that here it will be a real winner in your climate.

Hmmm... seems that, as with other roses, 'Lorraine Lee' is as prone to generalisations as any. At the Australian National Rose Garden, Longford, Tasmania, they have 'Climbing Lorraine Lee' growing around a gazebo (remember the one around that little wooden structure outside the main rose garden Dee???), and it was a sad and sorry sight with wrinkled foliage covered in mildew... hardly what you would call thriving. I'd be happy to ber proved wrong by seeing a good one down here, and won't form my primary judgement on a single specimen... but if I were to do so 'LL' would be as big a dud as the 'Climbing Peace' I just sold to warmer climates

I have seen a very good Lorraine lee in Tasmania Simon. It is in a garden in Georgetown in northern Tasmania. We went to this open garden in early October when no roses were flowering in my garden here in the south of the state. This rose was covered in leaves and buds and some flowers. I was very impressed with it. It had been pruned to within an inch of its life so all the flowers were on little short stubs.