- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When a ladybug landed on a gaura in our bee friendly garden, it was business as usual.
The business: eating aphids.
The rose aphids sucking the plant juices from the tender shoot didn't last long.
This is why ladybugs are known as "beneficial insects."
You gotta love those ladybugs.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
There she was, snuggled beneath a garbage can lid, seeking warmth as temperatures dipped to freezing levels.
She was lucky.
It was City Garbage Pick-Up Day. She could have been trucked to the local landfill had we not rescued her.
Luck be a lady and she was.
The little lady, aka ladybug, aka lady beetle, aka L-bug, survived.
She'll stay in the garden.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
For my New Year's resolution, I resolve to turn over a new leaf.
Oh, sure, most folks resolve to eat less, exercise more, drink less, read more, stress less, save more, gripe less, and volunteer more.
Not me.
I'm turning over a new leaf.
You never know what kind of insect you'll find there or what kind of insect will "pose" for you.
Happy New Year! (And may one of your resolutions involve "turning over a new leaf.")
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If there ever were a Christmas bug, it would be the ladybug, aka lady beetle.
The insects (family Coccinellidae) are brightly colored and spread joy in the garden when they feast on aphids.
Last summer we enjoyed watching them hanging out and hooking up. Their voracious appetites reminded us of holiday diners.
Please pass the aphids!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We netted the floundering California lady beetle (Coccinella californica) aka "lady bug," from our swimming pool.
She didn't look like the familiar lady beetle, reddish orange with black spots. One spot was all she had.
And little life left.
Then, slowly, miraculously, she opened her wings to dry out, looking somewhat like a drenched DeLorean with its doors flung open.
She reminded us of the nursery rhyme:
Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire.
And your children all gone.
All except one.
And that's little Ann.
For she crept under
The frying pan.
I don't know if she flew home. She definitely didn't creep under a frying pan.
But our little Hemiptera predator did live to see another day, and perhaps feast on another aphid or two.
Or a scale insect, mealybug or mite.