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Symphytum officinale

Neighbour gifts

I love checking out people’s gardens when I walk around the town, and I’m particularly attracted to riotous native shrubbery. If the owners are out working in the yard, I call out my compliments and stop to chat if they’re amenable. Today I met Elaine and Chet; they were really friendly and even dug up some comfrey for me to take home and plant. I’ve been wanting to grow it, but I never see it in nurseries, so when I spied their abundance, I wasn’t shy about asking for some.

Later in the afternoon our next-door-neighbour came over with more apricots from her tree. It’s starting to feel like we live here 😊

Murgantia histrionica

Murgantia histrionica

I had seen adult harlequin bugs* before, but never the nymph stage. Both life stages are a major pest of cabbage and related brassica crops, feeding on the stems and leaves with their piercing-sucking mouthparts. That didn’t seem to be happening on the bladderpods today, as far as I could see. But who knows that those sneaky little mouth-straws are doing!

*This is different from the insect known in Australia as a harlequin bug, Dindymus versicolor.