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elbows whenever I go past. It's a tough old brute. So I have no worries at all that it is being attacked by a battalion of major garden pests.It's been very mild this winter so it's no surprise that things are already active. The new leaf shoots

in Britain. Although there are about 250 species of hoverfly in the UK, and roughly 100 of them are black and yellow wasp mimics, this one is immediately recognizable by its narrow parallel-sided body shape and the fact that some abdominal segments have two

I'm always slightly perplexed when I hear someone talking about woodlice as if they were garden pests. My garden is full of the critters, but I've never even had need to raise my voice at them. They crowd around the flowerpots, under logs and stones

in the moist soil is a wireworm. I know these are supposed to be notorious garden and agricultural pests, but like so many insects, I can't really treat them as pests unless they reach pest proportions. A few of last year's potatoes had small holes in them

2007 will be remembered as a very good year for wasps. But before people start complaining about their vicious stings and bad tempers, I must point out that wasps are actually our friends. After birds and spiders, they are the most important insect

. At each scale an ant would stop, tickle it with its antennae, and suck up the small droplet of honeydew that was presented.Neither of these insects has ever reached pest proportions in my garden, so I've never had need to regard them as pests. On the other

nursery presented me with a dead specimen found flying around indoors last year.Unlike the berberis sawfly, which has caused quite a running commentary on this blog, Cimbex is never a garden pest, since it never reaches pest proportions. Instead

, pinks and yellowy greens.The nondescript green or brown caterpillar feeds on a huge range of native and cultivated plants, but it's usually very secretive and never a pest. It was sitting in its distinctive pose: head down body slightly raised with its

to be a particular problem; this is a very distant rumour for me though, none has yet made its way this far into the capital.I’m not surprised that deer can be a right pest in the garden, elegant and beautiful though they are. For the last few decades

-winged fly, Acinia corniculata, given Red Data Book 1 status - endangered - because it is known from so few places. I found one on the knapweeds (hardheads) in which the larvae live. The second was a weevil I knocked out of a bush nearby. It was a bit like a