Tiny little sap sucking insects

How long has it been since you saw a ladybird?

It has been about three years for me. I have seen the yellow ones in Martinborough in 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic, where I was told they had reached plague-like levels at our air bnb so they had sprayed them all. Dead ladybirds littered all of the exterior window frames.

I have seen a few shiny, bright blue ones (aka Steelblues, which are non native but not a huge deal)- although I can’t tell you where, or when- just that I had noticed them.

Then as we were discussing ladybirds at our morning work meeting, I realised, I have no real gauge of which ladybird is invasive, or a pest, and if we even had any native ones at all.

Unrelated, just one of our gorgeous roses and a sage plant going nuts in Karaka Bay

This intro was going to be short but I have just realised how big an issue this is- because one of the first results for ladybirds is on a Kiwicare blog (for chemical pest control)- and it doesn’t tell you which ones are good and which aren’t, and does of course suggest a number of chemical sprays to kill them!

I cannot tell the difference between a harlequin ladybird and <all of the other types, that are not so bad>. I have not found an easy guide to share. All ladybirds eat roughly the same thing, so any ladybird in your garden will be eating things you don’t like, like thrip and aphids. You should be happy to see ‘em, even if you can’t ID them.

I can confidently tell you that I am now a helpful member of NZ Ladybird Watch, confirming that I will record every single ladybird I see- which won’t be hard, unless something substantially changes, because that will be zero. In 2016 NZ Ladybird Watch wrote,

“We urgently need all sightings of Harlequin ladybirds, and also all other ladybirds so we can assess whether the Harlequin out-competes out native ladybirds like it's done overseas.”

Oh no. There were no updates.

Well, please join NZ ladybird watch. And please let me know if you have ladybirds?

There do not appear to be any ladybirds specific to NZ, although some are native to NZ/Australia. There are eleven-spotted ladybirds, which are not a Big Deal, but also not native. Two spotted ladybirds. Orange spotted ladybirds. These guys are ok by the sounds.

There are some non native, maybe-bad ones- called Harlequins. They are the bad ones just because they outcompete the other types of ladybird, and all ladybirds eat some forms of native insect larvae- so that is an issue to some degree. I would really love to provide some photos, but all of them are copyrighted, and gosh it is hard to tell them apart from the natives.

All I can really take from this is that we are told not to harm even the Harlequin ladybirds, just to record their existence on iNaturalist. And I guess to encourage all insects, big and small.

What I'm obsessing over this week

Not actually ladybirds, although I feel like I should be now! I have been obsessing over aphid control, which was also our staff focus for the week. Ladybirds were an aside, as they eat aphids.

Not aphids- whitefly- but you can treat them as the same. Under this leaf looks a bit scary but half of the weird colours are due to it being variegated (yellow and green), the only issues are the whitefly and larvae in the top left corner.

We can affirm-

• Blasting aphids off with a hose just leads to aphids walking back onto the plant. So do it the day after spraying the plant, and only blast off the dead ones.

• Squishing all of the aphids is a great start and something to do while walking through the garden (gross on the hands, though).

• The best way to kill aphids, continues to be spraying with 1T dish soap/hort soap + 1T oil (I use canola oil, if I don’t have Conqueror or similar) is still the best way- neem oil is good here, but neem will kill all bugs so use sparingly. I won’t use neem near open flowers as it will kill pollinators like bees and bumblebees.

• The best way to kill aphids and make sure they don’t return is a dollop of molasses mixed with seaweed fertiliser, sprayed all over the plant. I do not know why this works in Spring, but in Autumn it attracts predatory insects which eat them. It also provides nutrients for the plant, which makes it stronger and makes the aphids want to find a weaker plant to live on.

• After killing all of the aphids, they need to be blasted off with the hose the next day because they don’t fall off and it looks gross- exception seems to be roses.

• Whatever has aphids on will continue to attract aphids, so a regular molasses/seasol spray is for the best.

• Spray everything of the same type in the garden, as the aphids will just move onto a different plant of the same type otherwise.

I feel like we have tried it all. I was really excited when I saw my seasol/neem combo killed all of the black aphids on my alliums, although they eventually came back about a month later, so I have been doing it fortnightly to avoid a buildup.

A really ick combo of squished/sprayed aphids with the new living babies. So today I am going to spray them one more time, then tomorrow once they’ve died I’ll clean them off with the hose. I can’t clean them off now, because any living ones will just jump back on the plant and be missed by the spray.

Some garden tasks for this week

Check on your plant issues. This year has already been quite bad for aphids, and fungal issues. Get on top of them early! Remember if you aren’t sure what to do with a fungal issue, removing anything affected from the garden (not putting it in compost, not letting it fall to the ground) is a great start.

I have started up some buckets of comfrey, seaweed, chicken poo ‘tea’ by putting the stuff in a big drum and filling it with water. Weed tea is also good- just leave your weeding buckets out in the rain and don’t empty them on the garden for a few weeks. Good, easy nutrients.

And keep planting!
Have a fantastic week guys.