You Say Hello, And I Say Goodbye

For those of you who listen to the Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2 with Tony Blackburn, the lyrics will be immediately recognisable. ‘Hello Goodbye’ was a single by the Beatles which I first heard aged nine, and bought in Malvern Link, in the days when Malvern Link had a record shop and it wasn’t just that bloke who looked like The Scaffold’s Roger McGough at the bigger record shop in Great Malvern.

On Easter Saturday I was reminded of the fairly simplistic lyrics – must have been a McCartney not a Lennon – when attending to watering duties near the lilly pots. I had assumed it was too early in the year for lilly beetle, but the neat row of bites out of the leaves told me otherwise. They looked like the work of a leaf-cutting insect, punched out of the leaf edges with a degree of geometric regularity.

But leaf cutters tend to go for more rigid, challenging leaves than lilly and it was very early in the year for them.

Immediately I saw the villain of the piece, antennae twitching curiously at the bottom of one of the leaf nodes. No doubt the antennae were twitching because they sensed other lilly beetle were emerging and after doing a row of lilly leaf, it was time for some fun.

Bright red in colour, lilly beetles give themselves away. In nature, it tends to be a rule that the more vivid the colour of caterpillar or insect, the more poisonous the meal, should you decide to predate it. Which is why birds steer clear. That logic doesn’t work well with gardeners of even minimal colour vision, who aren’t necessarily seeking an insect snack. Neither are lilly beetle the swiftest movers.

As a contest, man vs. lilly beetle, it’s over pretty quickly. Which is a pity because lilly beetles are fine-looking creatures. Should they evolve to prefer sycamore leaves I would be cheering them along and building little over-wintering lilly beetle hotels along with Chris Packham.

Unlike slugs whose fate can be determined by someone else – green bins have their use in exiling the unwanted – or alternatively given a short flight experience, the lilly beetle is a winged insect with a keen sense of smell. It has to be disposed of.

Temperatures of over 25C in the back garden on Saturday brought out a host of amorous lilly beetles, emerging from winter into a sunny afternoon of feeding and adventure and the crushing disappointment of meeting up with a Beatles fan who was not a fan of the beetles.

You say hello, and I say goodbye.

FH