[kermit]

We live in a pretty rural town, plenty of trees, bushes etc around but not seen one ladybird here in 5 years.  Even last year when we had an aphid epidemic, still none.  Is it worth buying one of those extorionate ladybird houses from the garden centre  /rspb shop?  I can feel some aphids coming our way soon with all this warm weather...

[fatcat1955]

Have you had colder than usual winters?

[mike1987]

check the design and construstion page there is pics of a homemade one and they dont look to hard to build

[Christo]

Hi Kermit. I very rarely see the 'old fashioned', red-with-black-spots ladybirds these days. There was an influx of a very aggressive ladybirds from the far-east a few years ago and they rampaged across the land eating all our little ladybirds. Very sad. You can tell them from their larger shells/wings and their orange & black colours.

[diggerjoe]

We still have plenty of red and black ones at the plot but not that many in our home garden and with butterflies its loads in the garden but very few even Cabbage whites !!! at the plot - funny old world

[aelf]

There were quite a few around my plot a few weeks ago but I haven't seen any recently.

[tosca100]

Seen a few, not many. I seem to remember earlier in the year there were so many in certain areas they were worried we might have a repeat of 1975 or 6 when they were almost a plague in some areas.

[dexyblue]

I can remember a plague of them in the early 90's on a day out in Southport, thats when I found out that the little bu***ers bite 

[oldcow]

I've seen a few in my garden in the last week.

[Trikidiki]

I remember in the very hot summer of '76 there was an 'epidemic' of them and they really did bite.

If you want ladybirds you can buy them from http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Ladybirds.html amongst other places.

Just as an aside: I took a photo of a black/red spot ladybird mating with a red/black spot ladybird, now that's what you call racial harmony.

[kermit]

Winter just gone was obviously one of the coldes for decades, but before that it was pretty average.  We just dont seem to get them in our garden, which is a pitty as last year there were certainly enough aphids!  I was just wondering what you can do to encourage them.

Thanks for link to self-build a ladybird house, think I'll do that.  Dont think I'll be buying ladybirds    seems a bit excessive, not to mention expensive!

[tosca100]

I remember in the very hot summer of '76 there was an 'epidemic' of them and they really did bite.

If you want ladybirds you can buy them from http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Ladybirds.html amongst other places.

Just as an aside: I took a photo of a black/red spot ladybird mating with a red/black spot ladybird, now that's what you call racial harmony.

Where is it then? Can we see it....I love pics.

[Babstreefern]

I'm just back from two weeks in France, and the week before I left, I did a blitz on my plot to get rid of the weeds, and I mentioned to my hubby and other plot holders, the amount of ladybirds.  I had loads of them.

[Babstreefern]

Winter just gone was obviously one of the coldes for decades, but before that it was pretty average.  We just dont seem to get them in our garden, which is a pitty as last year there were certainly enough aphids!  I was just wondering what you can do to encourage them.

Thanks for link to self-build a ladybird house, think I'll do that.  Dont think I'll be buying ladybirds    seems a bit excessive, not to mention expensive!

Talk about money for old rope?

[Togalosh]

I'm not sure if this'll make you feel any better ..but we've got loads of em...it's not unusual to find 4 or 5 per plant plus the cool looking black & orange nymphs (?).

We've also had a few odd coloured invaders...but enough of the good old fashioned ones for us to make a comment on... mind you we could've done with a plague of them to scoff the aphid type things that had a real good chomp on my black currants.