GRASSHOPPER

SGF may be over, but a grasshopper came visiting a month back. Too bad I have no food for it.

SINGAPORE GARDEN FESTIVAL 12 - PART 7

More repeats are shown here. The three mascots of SGF - Benny the bee, Gary the grasshopper and Lindy the ladybird, are also featured here.

Anyway, this is the last post from me on this years SGF 12.

SINGAPORE GARDEN FESTIVAL 2012

The Singapore Garden Festival (SGF) is coming up again from 7-15 July 2012. Meanwhile, the exhibit at Orchard Road has attracted attention from passersby who posed for photos. The 3 mascots Benny the bee, Gary the grasshopper and Lindy the Ladybird are prominently featured in the landscape. And I spotted a flowering Brugmansia! Too bad it is so far and out of reach for me to catch a whiff of its fragrance.

GRASSHOPPER

This is a grasshopper that lost some of its legs. But why did the injured creature perch itself on a white pillar when it is more prudent to hide amongst the greenery? Is it trying to commit suicide by attracting attention to it?

HORTPARK 3

Unlike the two earlier posts on HortPark, this one focuses more on pests and diseases and nutrient deficiency symptoms.

There is a wide range of scale insects shown here. Some even look like barnacles on the stems and branches of the plants. The blackish soot-like layer on the leaves is the sooty mould, brought about by the scale insects. Usually, sucking insects like scales, aphids, mealy bugs secrete a honey dew-like substance that attracts ants. The ants harvest the substance and in turn farm these insects and protect them from other predators.


There was also a grasshopper, spotted on the leaf of a Canna plant, which typically chews the leaves causing extensive damages.


The variegated and non-variegated Manihot esculenta (common name: Tapioca) is also a nest bed of mealy bugs.


The leaves of the Diospyros malabarica tree were also badly damaged by the Bagworms.


The 3 stages of the Ladybird were also captured by the camera. Who would have thought that their larval stages look entirely different from the winged insect?


The reddish edge of the leaves of this particular Tristaniopsis whiteana tree was showing symptoms of possibly phosphorus deficiency.


Hispid beetles were found on the badly damaged fronds of the Coconut Palm.


Finally, this alien like moth caterpillar, which I captured before, was busy eating the leaves of the Ardisia elliptica.