Your spotted friend in the battle against sap-suckers
IN SPRING our gardens often seem to be under siege from an army of different aphids. Greenfly, blackfly, rose aphids and many other members of this troublesome family of pests are attracted to the soft, sappy new growth of plants and will reproduce at an alarming rate to form dense colonies.
These sap-suckers, with syringel i ke mouthpieces that pierce the outer skin of plants, cause deformed stems, leaves and flowers, and lead to a loss of vigour. Their sticky excrement – the charmingly named honeydew – provides the ideal surface for sooty mould fungus to develop, preventing photosynthesis.
As a single aphid can give birth to 100 young during its lifetime, it’s important to eliminate them immediately or you’ll be faced with an infestation. Rubbing them off with your fingers works if you spot them early enough, but all too often gardeners discover shoots are overrun and turn to chemical sprays as a last resort.
Fortunately, gardeners have a natural ally in the battle against these troublesome pests: ladybirds. Both the spotted adult insects and their fast- moving black larvae have a ravenous appetite for aphids.
Remarkably, a single ladybird can gobble up 5,000 aphids during the course of its life.
Despite being accomplished aphid- hunters, ladybirds can’t always be relied on to be in the right place at the right time. Well, help is at hand. It’s possible to buy packs of adult ladybirds that can be dotted around the garden or released directly on to aphid-infected plants, where they will tackle problems head-on.
Apart from sorting out immediate issues, each adult is capable of laying 20 to 50 eggs, which will help to swell the population of l adybirds i n your garden. In autumn, they’ll seek out a suitable place to hibernate, such as the inside of sheds, under bark and in the hollows among plant stems.
If you have youngsters at home, it’s great fun to breed your own ladybirds from larvae. Once they have been released, larvae will seek out and eat aphids.
The larvae will eventually attach themselves to a leaf and turn into a pupa. The hard shell will split within seven to 14 days, revealing an adult ladybird.
In order to make your garden more attractive to ladybirds, add plants that will provide them with food and shelter. They are partial to pollen from the flowers of lavender, chives and achillea, and like to hunker down in the fluffy seed heads of ornamental grasses, such as miscanthus, cortaderia and pennisetum.
Although ladybirds will naturally find somewhere snug to stay for the winter, children will enjoy installing a purpose ladybird ‘hotel’ in the garden. There are lots of different models available onli ne, f r om chunky bits of log poked full of holes to box-like structures. Some come with a metal hanger for attaching to walls or fences, while others are best mounted on the ground. Ensure they are facing north, so inhabitants are not woken up too early by sunshine in spring, when few pests are around for them to eat.
25 adult ladybirds, £16.99 (100 larvae, £16.49) from Dobies (dobies.co.uk).