Who caused this damage?

[S-J]

several months later (including, more's the pity, a winter without visible hedgehogs), and we think we have the beginnings of an answer: chafer grubs in the lawn. i have beetles eating my roses, and i have more drying/dying patches in the "lawn" (i use the term loosely). initial research indicates that these beastly larvae can live in the lawn, feeding happily on the grass roots, for up to three years. the new adults, meanwhile, are feasting on my roses (they evidently love golden showers and mme alfred carriere) and thus are far from welcome.

these are not the classic rose chafer beetles, however. they are too small, and they are not the right shape (they don't have the "waist" that apparently is expected of the rose chafer) and they are definitely not that beautiful iridescent green. some of them do have green heads, but the wing casings are rusty brown. no, it's not a cockchafer - it's not pointed at the rear, and there are no white "sawtooth" markings - but it is about the right size. we're thinking it's some kind of a mixture of the rose chafer and the cockchafer.

any ideas - on exact identification and/or the eradication of the larvae? so far i have a bucket which contains a fairly strong solution of jeyes fluid (and some dead beetles!), and i'm looking at some people called oecos who've just launched a new trap ... but of course that will deal only with the adult beetle, and not with the larva.

so ... the times are still interesting (!), and i foresee another couple of years of selective overseeding.

as an aside - in south africa i did notice that golden showers was particularly attractive to the CMR beetle (blister beetle) - a large, voracious, vividly yellow and black monster terrorist.

[jeremiah]

Probably Garden Chafer - Phyllopertha horticola.

Message - Wildlife Photography

(and I only know because I saw one for the first time ever on Tuesday and looked it up. )

[S-J]

yup - that's him.

we've been doing some local research and are told that this beetle has only recently appeared in this area. apparently a local golf club suffered a great deal of damage to the greens last year - may well try to get in touch with their people and see what they did and what the situation is this year.