What hedge plant is it? And do you have this problem every year?

i dont know what it is called. it is not a proper privet. it has soft leaves and red berries in winter. the berries are paler than holly berries. i did notice a lot of blue bottles around it last year but nothing with yellow and black stripes.

Any chance of a photo of the leaves? If not, does it have thorns, what colour are the flowers, when does it flower, is it evergreen? And, as asked previously, does this problem occur every year, or just this year?

i am not at home right now so unable to take a photo. the leaves do not have thorns. they are 'grass coloured' green, not the deep green colour of holly. the flowers are not proper flowers as such, the are small cream couloured spheres. i did notice a lot of flies around it last year but fewer no wasp-like insects.

Well that eliminates quite a few possibilities as to what plant it is, but whatever it is, for some reason it attracts insects at this time of year - you may just have to wait till mid or end of August, when the insects will hopefully have disappeared because whatever it is that's attracting them has gone, and cut it then.

thank you bamboo. i've been looking at some photographs online of hedge plants but can't see ours.

I'm wondering if its a form of cotoneaster, but there are so many of those you'd be hard put to find a photo of yours. This would have privet sized leaves, maybe slightly larger.

from what i can see on wikipedia it looks like it might be a cotoneaster frigidus.

That's a possibility, but there's another one - Cotoneaster franchetii which gets about 9 feet - the one you mention gets much bigger, about 20 feet, so franchetii is more often used as hedging.

from the photographs online, it does look like a frigidus. we cut it four or five times a year, it does grow rather quickly. i wonder do they particularly attract insects?

just saw another photograph, it does look more like a franchetii. how did you work that out?

Not been a professional gardener for years and not learnt a thing or two, Jtmcg, lol! Doesn't change your problem though - something's attracting the insects, and you may well have to wait to cut it back.

thanks Bamboo - at least i know the name of my plant! i've been doing some googling on the subject and from what i can gather insect infestation is not a common problem. i think we'll do as you suggest - wait until the frantic insect activity dies down and then cut it back.

It's a bit weird because there's another question on here about heavy fly and wasp infestation on a vine, so maybe there are infinitely more of them about this year. See if you can find out what they're doing when on the bush - are they on the berries, or are there some more flowers they're interested in.