Friends and foes

Greenfly and other aphids are tasty meals for ladybirds and their larvae. Here is a small 14 spot ladybird cleaning up my roses.

Notice that the other buds have no green fly on them! Everyone know the red and black 7 spot ladybirds, but there are 45 different species and all but one are champion greenfly killers. Some people kill the larvae which are grey with dull red spots and don't look anything like ladybirds. That is a pity because they eat even more than the adults do. If you spray the greenfly you'll kill the ladybirds to and they are working on your behalf all day, every day!

 

Hover flies are one of the gardener's very best best friends. RHS advises growing French marigolds and similar plants in your garden to attract them. They are great eaters of greenfly. Very sad that some people believe that any yellow and black striped insect is a wasp! Hoverflies mimic the wasp as a disguise to protect themselves from being eaten by birds. They have no sting and are totally beneficial.



Here is a group drinking nectar from one of the hawkweed type plants.

 

Hornbeam those pics are wonderful!not to mention the great advice.

 

Hi Hornbeam, If I have an excess of greenfly on a plant which I cannot wipe off, I spray with water and a few drops of shampoo. This lowers the surface tension of the liquid and clogs the greenflies' breathing apparatus, I believe. But does it also harm ladybirds, do you know?

 

Hornbeam, great pics and advice, keep it coming!

Only thing I have to say about ladybirds is that there seems to be quite a lot of them in my garden this year, but they hide in the rain and bask in the sunshine (when we get it) and they are too lazy to eat the aphids! (or so it appears!)

 

You can't have too many ladybirds. They'll really get going when the weather warms up.

Not sure, Liz. Spraying with water and soap is a lot better than chemical sprays and if you avoid spraying where you see ladybirds, they will probably be alright

 

Another friend for the garden. Crickets look like grasshoppers and grasshoppers look like locusts and so people think that they must eat plants. Not true. This bush cricket lives mainly on the insects that eat your plants. Look closely - you can see that he's got his beady eyes on you!

 

:D "didnt anyone ever tell you that its rude to stare?

 

Hornbeam, I've not seen a ladybird like the one in your first pic before, Had I seen it I would have been tempted to think it was a harlequin.

 

Sorry Pete, I haven't come across the term "harlequin". Is it a beetle? Perhaps it's another name for this type of ladybird.

 

I could be wrong but Harlequin was the ladybird that we were all told to keep an eye open for as its a foreign invader, and much more sucsessful than the native ones. Therefore starving out our own ones, It was in all the nature watch prog. last year.

 

Yes - you are right, Pete. Thankfully the one in my photo is not the harlequin ladybird. Info and picture can be seen here: http://www.harlequin-survey.org/

Its always trouble when a foreign plant or animal comes in that has no natural predtaors to keep it in check. Could this be the grey squirrel of the ladybird world?

 

Some of the mini-beasts in our gardens are quite neutral and are neither friends nor foes. I love watching them all. This is the hawthorn shield-bug which is sometimes mistaken for the adult of the froghopper that lives in the "cuckoo spit" on your plants. The adult shield bug might nibble a leaf, but its larvae feed on hawthorn berries


Nobody likes flies, but there are flies and flies! Some like the hover flies are our best friends and others like the house flies are our worst foes. The green bottle is neither as it rarely comes into the house and does no harm in the garden.

 

Hornbeam, you mention 'cuckoo spit'. We often tend to get a lot on our lavendar bushes. Is it harmful? We try to wash it off- which doesn't always last for long as they re-appear.

 

The cuckoo spit is a protective froth that is made by the larva of the froghopper. It is a bug that sucks sap from the plants. Damage is fairly minimal. You can spray it off with water or just squish it off with your fingers.