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Just wanted to share this fantastic moment 🐞

dappledshadedappledshade Posts: 1,017
in Problem solving
I’ve been battling insect pests for a few years now, refusing to use chemicals and just nematodes and predatory larvae of various insects.
Finally, my efforts have paid off: my poor, wee damson, sticky with aphids and looking very sorry for itself the past 3 weeks or so, is currently smothered with ladybird larvae and adult ladybirds!
They are all merrily chomping away and the stickiness is reducing.
So chuffed 😁



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Posts

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    HURRAH. :D
    Devon.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Did anybody watch the programme last night about the heatwave in 1976? It showed swarms of ladybirds absolutely covering people and cars etc and apparently biting people as well - for food they said! 

    I don't remember that, only the wall to wall sunshine for weeks and weeks!
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • ShepsSheps Posts: 2,236
    Well done @dappledshade

    I can just about remember that, I was 7yrs old, so Ladybirds everywhere was a wonderful thing.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Lizzie27 said:
    Did anybody watch the programme last night about the heatwave in 1976? It showed swarms of ladybirds absolutely covering people and cars etc and apparently biting people as well - for food they said! 

    I don't remember that, only the wall to wall sunshine for weeks and weeks!
    I remember that summer … @WonkyWomble was born April ‘76  🥰😎

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Ladybird4Ladybird4 Posts: 37,906
    @Lizzie27 I remember that year as one of my brothers was bitten on his arm by ladybirds. He didn't have any adverse reactions but he said that they were quite serious nips. We were more surprised that they actually DID bite! We recalled when small having ladybirds crawling on our hands - with no biting.
    Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
  • Pauline 7Pauline 7 Posts: 2,246
    I feel your pain Dove. My son was born in October 1976, I carried him through all of it.
    West Yorkshire
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    We were on holiday in Exmoor when the ladybirds swarmed,  you couldn’t walk the paths, just had to tread on them, they were thick.  I didn’t think that was the same year as the drought, must have been if they said it.
    It was too hot to take my baby out during the day,  I would walk her in her big pram in the Park about 8pm. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Prevailing winds took the ladybirds eastwards. If you wore a yellow tee shirt in Lowestoft in the Summer of ’76 you were doomed.
    Rutland, England
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    I wonder why I don't remember any ladybirds swarming - perhaps it just didn't happen in the Bath area.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • bcpathomebcpathome Posts: 1,313
    I remember very well ,particularly sticks in my mind swimming in an outdoor pool ,through hoards of them which had landed in the pool 
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