Yesterday I visited Vencie Fishing Pier just before sunset and got the bonus of my week! I don't know why it happened but there were just loads of baby shrimp washed up along the water line (too hot maybe?), and not just shrimp - there many different types of bugs also washed up there including Ladybugs! There wasn't really much to do about the shrimp - they got washed back up after being tossed into the water - but many of the Ladybugs were still alive. Maude gave me her water bottle and I picked out about 30 of them.
Because we were out all evening I didn't get to refridgerate them, but they seemed to go pretty dormant after dark anyway. I released them into the roses when we got back very late (but was too tired to spray them down). This morning I was happy to not find any dead ones although I think some very likely already flew the coop. I did find a few of them still hanging around. Sorry for the pic quality, I'm still stuck using only my camera phone.
I can't really convey how excited I am about these Ladybugs! You see, they can be bought at the nursery but those are not local native Ladybugs and may not decide to stay in the garden they're released in or just have a terrible time adapting. Nurseries in my area usually sell a container of 50-100 for about $8. So if it hadn't gotten to dark to see I'd have about the same number of local native Ladybugs that should be very happy in my garden for free. *glow*
Anyway, I hope she goes after those aphids attacking the rosebuds! Oh nearly forgot, the front yard renovation has finally been moving forward. That's one of the new flower beds and we got all of the roses back in the ground. They've been having a hard time of it between the aphids and being in temporary containers for 2 weeks. I will do a post all about that very soon.
Thats pretty weird. Cool, and good. But weird. The ladybugs were in the water?
ReplyDeleteThe ladybugs were crawling on the sand and debris at the edge of the water line. every few minutes a wave would come in high enough to push them around a bit and I imagine wash some out. I didn't see them coming in on the water though.
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