mystery plant and mystery bug

[Palustris]

Despite being illegal to allow it to grow, the roadside verges round here are stuffed full of ragwort.

[terrier]

Last year, the council workies pulled up loads ofthe stuff from off the motorway verges on near Chester but left it to lie there to re seed itself.

[Dig-in-Dudley]

The insect beastie thing is def shield beetle - I found one last year & got freaked by it because it seemed to ooze some weird toxic gunk. I took it to a local garden centre (securely in a plastic box) & the guy let it out of the box & let it fly away; garden centre guy said that they were friendly beasties & wouldn't cause any problems in garden.
Hope it helps!

[Earthbabe]

I'm sure I've seen clumps of this around the lottie. Will take appropriate action.

[Stacey]

i heard of someone who had a house right next to some stables and apparently planted something that the horses found irrestable and many died.Do you think that wudv been ragwort? If I remember correctly he was made to remove it. I didnt realise it was illegal though.Ive never heard of anything like that before.Any tips on spotting it. I wouldnt want it hurting any of my babies, er animals.

[muckdiva]

i heard of someone who had a house right next to some stables and apparently planted something that the horses found irrestable and many died.Do you think that wudv been ragwort? If I remember correctly he was made to remove it. I didnt realise it was illegal though.Ive never heard of anything like that before.Any tips on spotting it. I wouldnt want it hurting any of my babies, er animals.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to plant ragwort, it's not that attractive, although I s'pose everything has its place. Horses don't usually go for growing ragwort plants, but find it attractive when cut and wilted.

To be honest, the worst risk is when non horsey neighbours throw grass clippings over into horses' paddocks. This is often deadly, as the clippings heat in the horses stomachs and cause terrible and fatal colics. Please, any grapes who didn't already know this, never ever ever feed any lawn clippings to horses.

There are lots of other plants which are toxic to horses, yew particularly (we think my sister's pony died of yew poisoning after he escaped into garden). Fallen acorns can be problematic, and obviously deadly nightshade which often grows in the hedge but horses never seem to touch. I wonder if maybe the plant you heard about was a near relative to ragwort (Senecio family)?

[Stacey]

now you say nightshade that sounds familiar,but you say horses dont seem to eat it. he definately planted something that horses find irresistable but is lethal to them. and many people at the stables believed he did it on purpose

[Littleweeme]

Found these for folks who are unsure of what is ragwort:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...tryGB%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl...=1&sa=N&tab=wi

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...tryGB%26sa%3DN

[Cath Lancaster]

How do I take cuttings from Geraniums and when do I take them. Sorry if Isound stupid but I've never done this before.
Thanks