Ladybirds For Aphid Control

[ILoveFlumps]

It seems I have an aphid problem this year. My tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes seem to be riddled with the things.

I'm loathed to used pesticides, and have been reading about ladybirds as a natural predator.

Has anyone ever bought ladybirds/ladybird larvae and found they helped? Or did the little buggers just fly away?!

Apparently awesome. This lady filmed them at work!

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It’s f they supply larvae, they can’t fly away

I had a ridiculous amount of aphids on my bananas. I found a ladybird a few days ago and put it on my banana next to the aphids. Well my goodness it went on an absolute rampage - literally hovering them up so any that I find now I move them into problem areas and they definitely seem to be helping!

That's great @Deereamer. I would do the same I expect I can't find any. I've finally taken the plunge and squish them and their offspring in tissues . Absolutely revolting but cleared my roses today. Will have to keep doing this.

@Notsogreenthumb there’s definitely not so many ladybirds about this year - we usually have loads in the garden and can find them easily but I’m only finding them occasionally at the minute. I wonder if it might be due to the warm weather starting late this year?

I bought 25 ladybirds online last year. I'd say there were usually about 10 ladybirds in the garden at any one time and the rest probably went to neighbouring gardens. This year I've had quite a few in the garden and in the past couple of weeks there have been loads of ladybird larvae (I didn't have a clue what they were and thought they looked rather ominous!). My roses are suffering from aphid infestations and annoyingly the ladybirds seem to prefer the opposite side of the garden. I've been picking up the larvae on a piece of card and directing them back to the roses. I'm starting to see results since moving the larvae.