A few weeks ago, when the summer was hot and humid greenfly and blackfly were the bain of my garden. My neighbour lent me her insecticide as a quick way to get rid and I must say using it a couple of times it worked a treat. I then felt guilty and started looking for more green ways of fending off those little pests. I read that squashing them (finger and thumb approach) was guaranteed method to eliminate them and/or spraying them with soapy water was another, for the squeemish among us or if the infestation is simply too severe. But then, I found out that ladybirds and their babies (ladybird lavare) feed on aphids like greenfly and blackfly - a natural pest control... Yay!!
Apparently, each larvae will eat large numbers of pests before pupating and emerging as a ladybird (between May and August)
How to encourage those lovely ladybird lavare into my garden, I hear you ask? Well, apparently ladybirds like the following plants:
- Black Spleenwort
- Broad buckler fern
- Evening Primrose
- Gorse
- Great Mullein
- Hard Shield fern
- Harts Tongue
- Ivy
- Lady fern
- Maidenhair Spleenwort
- Male fern
- Polypody
- Red Campion
- Royal fern
- Spindle
- White Campion
So, if you have any of those you should be OK. I'm definately going to be adding some of those to my garden; especially evening primrose, ferns and some lavendar (for bees and butterflies too)
No comments:
Post a Comment