Attack of the Ladybugs (August 2003)

You are here: Andrew Ho > Personal > Photos > 2003 Ladybugs

Holly has been setting up a container garden on our large upstairs balcony. It's quite an impressive array of plants, including some flowers (bougainvilleas, cosmos, geraniums, morning glories, and nasturtium), vegetables (tomatoes and peppers), herbs (mint, cilantro, parsley, and basil), and fruits (lemons, limes, and figs).

The other day she discovered nasty aphids clustering on the pepper plants, so the decision was made to bring in the big guns: ladybugs. So we went to the local Summer Winds Garden Center and bought a cup of ladybugs (1,500 ladybugs total!). They were a pretty vigorous bunch, and I would say well under 5% were DOA. We released them at night on misted plants, as per the instructions we have read on how to encourage ladybugs to stay put, and here are some photographs of them clustering on our various plants.

medium | large	medium | large	medium | large	medium | large
Dim shot of ladybugs crawling from the ladybug transport cup	Ladybugs crawling around, shot with LED lighting	Same closeup of the swarm of ladybugs	More ladybugs

medium | large	medium | large	medium | large
Ladybugs shot with Xenon lighting instead of LEDs	Another Xenon lit shot, brigher but somewhat overexposed	A wide-angle shot of the area using the camera flash

Here are some links to pages discussing ladybugs in gardens:

• Luring Ladybugs Into Your Garden
• Article on Asian Ladybugs from Catherine's Garden
• The Day the Ladybugs Came from Homestore.com
• All the Good (Bugs) in Your Garden
• Lethal Ladybugs from the Do It Yourself Network
• All About Ladybugs from Victor Pest Control

Funny background note: our container garden originally grew out of a simple idea to grow all the component ingredients of mojitos. Hence the lemons, limes, and mint (if anybody knows of a rum tree, please let me know).

Andrew Ho (andrew@zeuscat.com)