Allotment holders are hopping mad as their green goodies are being destroyed by what seems to be a giant rabbit. They've called in trained marksmen after rows of veggies have been ripped up on the patches in Northumberland. But the RSPCA has called for a kinder solution, urging them to trap it in a cage and release it elsewhere. The main clues to the culprit are some oversized paw prints and sightings of a cross between a hare and a rabbit with one ear larger than the other.  What do you get if you cross a rabbit with a naughty hare?  A bad habbit.

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But is there such a thing as a giant bunny? ‘Yes’ says the owner of Herman the gigantic rabbit. The mighty bunny weighs a massive 7.7kg, and his ears are a lengthy 21cm - almost as long as most pet rabbits are tall. And he is almost 1m tall. The German Giant is even big for his breed, which usually tips the scales at around 6kg.  Herman lives in a specially built solid oak hutch and chomps his way through just over 2kg of food a day. His owner says his favourite snack is lettuce. You don’t say?

The giant bunny, who lives in Berlin with owner Hans Wagner, also takes a vitamin supplement to keep him healthy, and munches through a bale of hay a week.  Herman could be the world's biggest rabbit, but Guinness World Records have stopped accepting entries because of fears people were over-feeding their pets. German Giants do not exist in the wild, and have been developed by breeders. They can live for as long as 12 years.  So Easter Bunny – beware! You have competition.  Perhaps Herman the German Giant doesn’t have quite the same ring to it though…

Have you noticed all the ladybirds appearing lately?  If you’ve time to spare then have a quick count of the spots. Hah! We thought as much! Seven spots eh?  Intereresting, veeerrry interesting. Ladybirds emerge from hibernation from February onwards, sometimes earlier in the south. They mate in May and June and the females lay tiny yellow-green eggs in groups of up to 50, often on the underside of leaves. One female may lay more than 2,000 in her lifetime if she has enough to eat.

Ladybirds are an asset to any garden because just one can consume more than 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Besides greenfly and whitefly, they also prey on scale insects, mealybugs and other garden insect pests. The aphid/ladybird relationship is of great interest to scientists and was even studied in a zero gravity environment on a NASA space shuttle in 1999. Houston we have a problem.  The ladybird has flown away home, we repeat, the ladybird has flown away home…

The ladybird's bright colours warn predators such as ants and birds that it's not good to eat. When disturbed or handled it secretes oily, foul-smelling yellow fluid from its legs as a further warning so it's best to leave ladybirds on plants where they belong.

If you want to know more about ladybirds then look at the Springwatch website

You could even take part in the project by logging where you saw the ladybirds.

How many different flow—e---er—ers gro-ow in an English country ga-ar-den? La! La! La! La! Some that I kno-ow ..la! la!….

Yes Spring is most definitely on its way so we have for you a ‘Grow Giant Plants’ Discovery Tube which contains two plants to grow and monitor over the spring and summer months. So if you fancy yourself as a bit of a greenfingers then email us with your name, age and address to: wired-up.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘GROW UP!’ as the subject. The winner will be picked at random at 5pm, on Thursday 27th April.

Good luck!

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Remember issue no. 43? We were giving away five copies of Flipside magazine. The winners are Faith Millward (13) from Cowplain, Craig Stevens (12) from Boston, Mary Palmer-Smith (7) from Cardiff, Zoe Vincent (13) from Cornwall and Bahadhur Sandhu (8) from Leicester. Well done everyone!

And remember, keep entering ‘cos next time –it could be YOU!

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