Where are all the ladybirds??

[APurpleSquirrel]

We've hardly had any ladybirds in the garden this year - anyone else?
Is it the weather?
Our cherry tree & lots of other plants have tons of blackfly - usually it's fine as the ladybirds & their young move in & deal with it, but not so far this year. & thinking about it, I just haven't seen many this year either.
I know the bumblebees were delayed by the cold wet spring, so wondering if it's the same with ladybirds?

Have spent the day hosing black fly off tomato and various other plants and just said to dh, 'where are all the ladybirds?!' Never had such a problem with black fly.

Just talking about buying some ladybirds but quite expensive - and I don't want them to fly away!!

I've seen one this year. Not seen many butterflies either. Or much of anything in terms of insect life! I don't use chemicals in the garden and I'm pretty sure my neighbours don't either.

The birth of a ladybird! 🐞

@APurpleSquirrel Amazing photo!

I saw a ladybird larvae just yesterday; I think it might not be the time for adult ladybirds yet.

You have made me realise I haven't seen any this summer. 😕

I saw a few in mid April. Our cherry tree is covered in blackfly too but no more than usual. Normally I see lots of ladybird larvae on it at some point but none yet. We have done no ow on part of the garden but no noticeable increase in insects, but we get a lot of bees normally anyway.

Yes to food and water, we feed the hedgehogs at dusk every night and they ate obviously waiting close by because they appear almost immediately.

Our cherry tree has loads of ladybird nymphs now, some still charging about, but most have stopped & gone into there metamorphosis state so we'll soon have lots of new ladybirds around - which is great as we now have loads of black, white & green fly for them!

It's an amazing transformation, dd 9 spends ages inspecting her pear tree for ladybird larvae and watching them changing into adults. We might even get a few pears for the first time this year too, they're coming along nicely.