YesYou’d think it would be a metaphor to compare a garden insect to a hippopotamus. But obviously you haven’t seen the rose beetles on my sun-kissed elder down here in the deep south.
These massive beetles do not feed so much on the pollen and nectar of the delicate umbels, but rather to indulge. They land heavily on the white, powdery sugar-soft florets and crawl around as if they were rolling around in a bubble bath, but they seem inappropriately large, like a grown-up between the plastic balls in a soft play center.
Rose beetles are luminous, jeweled, 2 cm long marvels that fly from flower to flower and shrub to shrub like giant bumblebees in summer, far more at home in flight than the lanky stag beetle. When the sun captures their wing-coverts (hard wing-coverts), the green shimmers and blinds as if it were the result of a long brass rub – perhaps too hard, as the flaky white lines and dots that appear on the wing shells can suggest overzealous attention: the Beetle scrubbed.
Rose beetles are the enviable good-looking relatives of the old-fashioned but lovable cockchafer or cockchafer. Or maybe you are the cockchafer in the midlife crisis who swaps a tired brown coat for an embarrassingly flashy green suit. Either way, they look too “tropical” to be British insects, too sun-loving for a rainy nation. It may come as no surprise that they are most common in southern England.
These glorious insects provide definitive evidence that any garden should contain rotting wood or a compost heap, or preferably both. The adult female lays eggs in such places, and the maggot larva lives in the rich underground soup for two years before pupating. The moths hatch in the fall but stay underground until they emerge in the warmer months, diamonds from the decaying seams.
The adults have a short summer of sex and sweet food. They have specially adapted mouthparts, somewhat reminiscent of a wet brush, and easily pick up pollen. It is a life of lightness, indulgence and joy balanced on blossoms.
Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
