What I did tonight....

[Lisa0825]

Aren't they adorable?????

http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a68/Lisa0825/Garden/ladybugs/?albumview=slideshow

[Inchworm]

1. sooo, I assume ladybugs are garden helpers hehe

I'm a newbie :)

Yes they are cute though.

:hi:

[Lisa0825]

2. YES!

Ladybugs are voracious eaters, and their menu consists of aphids and the ants which tend to aphids. And they're just so darned cute!LOL! :loveya:

we didn't have many around here, so I read about places that breed them and ship them, and they just arrived today. Supposedly you can even refrigerate them for later release, but that doesn't seem nice to me, so I set them free the same night they arrived. They were very energetic, and started crawling all over me the moment I opened the package! It totally brought me back to grade school when we used to "hunt" for them and do the "fly away home" poem.

I read that 95% of the ones released will fly away and locate themselves elsewhere, so out of the approximately 1500 in my package, maybe 75 will settle down and raise families. Either way, I had fun playing with them and watching them explore my garden :)

[Inchworm]

3. That is cool!

Every spring I have a ladybug intrusion in my house. I rarely close the doors from like May to September. They are everywhere :D

Woohoo!

:woohoo:

[Lisa0825]

4. I am so envious!!!

I am lucky if I see a half a dozen all summer around here! I am hoping since I brought some in also and have a compost bin, I will have more stick around. I noticed that there were several on the sides of my compost bin, and there were aphids in there too.

edited to add: aside from ladybugs, I think inchworms are the next cutest buggers! :)