Natural Consequences

The Ladybug and Other Insects by Pascale de Bourgoing, Gallimard Jeunesse and Sylvie Perols (A First Discovery Book, 1991)

The Very Grouchy Ladybug (by Eric Carle)

That's it. Aphids are destroying some of my plants, especially the used-to-be beautiful flowers.



I'm going au natural. Marched down to the nursery and bought 1500 ladybugs. Give or take. Hah! That'll show them who's boss. $9.99 per container. Let's see, that works out to about... $.0067 cents each. What a deal!

Special directions are to water garden first. Let drip. AFTER sundown, release 1/3 of the ladybugs. (Easier said than done, as ALL want to be first out - 1500 voices yelling, "Let me out of here!"). I chilled mine first in the fridge to slow them down. Did not last long.

Put ladybugs at the base of the plants, as they will climb up. If they are released after sundown, they will not immediately fly away.

I actually read and followed the directions. Today, I saw 1/3 of my ladybugs. Busy on the ugly flowers, munching away on the vermin who set out to ugli-fy my plants.



Mission appears to be accomplished.

Skip a day. Add the next 1/3 of the ladybugs. Skip a day. Add the last 1/3. Slowly, slowly, I am building up a ladybug colony. This is exciting. I want to see some tiny yellow eggs and then some larva crawling around. Yes.

But while I'm waiting, maybe I'll check out two great ladybug books. The Very Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle is a fiction gem. I believe about 1499 of the ladybugs in my container were grouchy. Now only about 599 are grouchy. Carle's book is loads of fun for kids and adults.

A wonderful nonfiction fact filled treasure is The Ladybug and Other Insects. The photographs are great, as well as the information garnered to help me on my quest for eradicating the plant leeches in my garden.