Ladybugs Archives – Strength Of The Small

Ladybugs Spiders Insects Garden Decor Flowers Shrubs & Trees Gardening High Desert

Loving Warm Weather

By JM PerezMay 25, 20202 min read888 views

I do not know about the rest of you, but we are enjoying the warm weather here. This week has been really good and we accomplished so much around the yard. With most plants flowering all around my property at the same time, I am realizing that most of them are yellow. From Daylilies, Rose trees, Climbing roses, Gladiolus, Gopher plants, Silvery Cassia, Yellow bird of Paradise bush, Green Feathery Senna, California Poppy, to Scotch and French Broom shrubs, … etc!

Spartium Junceum, also known as Spanish Broom, Rush Broom and Weaver’s broom, is a medium sized shrub which produces clusters of abundant bright yellow pea-like flowers. Spanish Broom is closely related to the other Brooms, with the exception of the honey-vanilla scent that the flowers from the Spanish Broom emit. They are drought tolerant and deer resistant.
This evergreen shrub is self-sowing and due to its prolific seed production, has been classified as a noxious weed. The plant is poisonous to humans and livestock.

I love ladybugs and I love the fact that they are beneficial garden insects. They are a favorite to gardeners, as they help keep garden pests at bay. Some ladybugs are omnivores, feeding on soft bodied insects such as mealybugs, aphids, scale insects, spider mites, eggs of the European corn borer and Colorado potato beetle. Other ladybugs are herbivores, feeding only on plant material and fungi, such as mildew. Ladybugs lay many eggs and the larvae immediately begin to feed as soon as they hatch.

As the weather warms up, Black Widow Spiders come out.

I spotted a lone Green Stink Bug (Chinavia Halaris), also known as Say’s Stink Bug on a Daylily Bud.

Mosquitoes too, love warm temperatures. We had a pretty wet late Winter and early Spring, and along came mosquitoes. Click here to learn how to protect yourselves.

So far is it a good year for all the plants in my gardens. The amount of rainfall we’ve had since the beginning of the year has made a huge difference by giving everything a good start.

I hope you are all enjoying the warm weather while being productive and staying safe.

Pages:

By JM Perez

Ladybugs Flowers Shrubs & Trees Gardening High Desert

Beauties Awake in Spring

By JM PerezApril 18, 20192 min read700 views

The weather is warming up, awakening and encouraging the plants to thrive. This is the Spring I love. When everyone and everything comes alive. When the old suddenly becomes news, when what was lost is once again found and when beauty is given for ashes. I love all the seasons, but I love Spring best for new beginnings in the garden.

Last Spring I bought two climbing roses (Yellow Lady Banks Rose) and planted them at each end of the second set of arches by the front gate leading to the backyard. By now, the arches would have been fully covered, but as you can see, only the climbing rose facing the front yard has covered half of the arch. Late last Fall, my neighbor’s cat was strangely attracted to that climbing rose and continuously peed on it for weeks straight. Of course, I could see the tracks, but I didn’t know at the time since all my plants run on drip irrigation. One day I saw that the rose was wilting, so I increased the amount of water thinking it was due to the heat. The next day, the plant died and I could smell the cat urine around the plant and in the soil. I would have made them replace the plant, had the cat (who has caught several times on camera) not gone missing. Yes, cat urine will kill your plants.

I had to wait until early Spring, when climbing roses were available in nurseries to get a replacement. I bought a White Lady Banks climbing rose and given that these are fast growing roses, I am pretty sure the arch will be fully covered by the end of the year. The Lady Banks’ Roses are beautiful and being thornless, they make training and maintaining painless. Also, they are drought tolerant and disease resistant especially when provided with full sun exposure.

After getting rid of almost all my rose bushes years ago, I decided to buy one more last month to replace one of the Blue Moon Roses which died. This one if called Kordes Perfecta Rose and bloomed for the first time yesterday. It’s quite a beauty.

My Rose trees are always infested with Aphids during this time of year. As I was about to spray the rose tree in the backyard with liquid Sevin® Insect Killer a couple of days ago, I was delighted and grateful to see a colony of ladybug larvae at the base of the plant while the majority were making their way up. Knowing the solution would kill them too, I surrendered and allowed them to do their job. As of today the rose tree is almost insect free.

A Painted Lady Butterfly resting on the green leaves of a Golden Arborvitae.

Happy gardening and I hope everyone is having a great day.

Pages:

By JM Perez

Ladybugs Gardening High Desert

Planting & Transplanting

By JM PerezApril 16, 20191 min read508 views

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find a Light Orange Tulip flower, the only flowering plant on the edge of a small flower bed with a variety of bulbs. So bright and beautiful.

Last Friday we went plant shopping at Lowe’s and purchased a few plants. I love Wisteria and it’s such a beautiful plant, but I am still skeptical about planting one in my yard because of the plant toxicity. I suppose time will tell …

*Chinese Wisteria, Calla Lily, Rose Marie Magnolia.*

I am growing a few cactuses in pots to transplant in the backyard by the dry creek bed along side a varieties of drought-tolerant ornamental grasses.

*Opuntia, Spring Cactus, Ruffled Red, Mardi Gras.*

I dug out the re-did the flower bed under the living room window to match the one under our bedroom since both face the street. I dug out the Lily of the Nile, split most, transplanted them in the backyard and watered heavily. I am sure they will thrive in their new location which is directly exposed to the sun. I had a bunch of Goodwin Creek Gray Lavender seedlings, which I transplanted into the flower bed.

*Russian Sage (Perovskia Atriplicifolia) Flower Beds.*

Now I can move on to the next project.

Pages:

By JM Perez

Ladybugs Spiders Insects Flowers Shrubs & Trees Gardening High Desert

Insects In The Garden

By JM PerezMay 3, 20131 min read928 views

For the past six years we have used our garage as storage for things we didn’t need in the house. It seems that for every item we’ve given away, we’ve somehow receive twice as much. This afternoon, we started re-organizing the garage, moving things around, sorting others in different boxes (those we are keeping, the giveaways and those we are simply getting rid of). I am always excited when we clean up because I know for sure that I will find items to donate to others in needs. I have learned never to hold on to things which no longer serve my needs and when it comes to donating I do it with love and never expecting anything in return, not even a simple thank you. My only reward is knowing that someone, hopefully, will put whatever they receive to good use.

While outdoors gardening, setting up the new planter and deadheading my roses, I found interesting bugs.

I spotted the Goldenrod Crab Spider above on the Judy Garland Rose pictured. It dropped off a flower petal when I got too close and landed on a stepping stone. Younger females especially tend to change color from white to yellow depending on their targeted flower (to blend in appropriately or become nearly invisible).

Wishing you a good night and a happy, fun-filled weekend.

Pages:

By JM Perez

Ladybugs Insects Weather Nature High Desert

Ladybug Hunt

By JM PerezMarch 22, 20132 min read1.3K views

Today being an awesome day, we spent the whole afternoon Ladybug hunting. It was such a fun activity and the kids enjoyed it. These are some of the tools we used:

– Opened Jar/Trimmed Plastic Bottle
– Hammer and Nails (to pierce the lead for air, if you don’t want them to fly off right away or die)
– Small Branch (to watch them climb)
– Magnifying Glasses
– Lots of Patience

They started the search and once the kids had one on sight, they would carefully catch them, put them in a container, admire them for a little while and then release them back into the wild. They enjoy using their magnifying glasses and often end up finding/collecting a lot more than just ladybugs.

Spring 2012 (Ladybugs Hunt). — *Spring 2012 (Ladybugs Hunt) at Lake Gregory, CA.*

I have always known Ladybugs to be beneficial Garden bugs until a few months ago, when I found a few articles while looking for Vegetable Garden Ideas. I was surprised to learn that some species of these beauties are voracious pests themselves and the easiest way to figure out which is which is by counting the number, shape, and placement of the spots on their wing coverings.

Many species are beneficial to gardeners as they eat plant pests such as aphids, Cochineal, mealybug, mites, ground pearls, pit scales, cottony cushion scales and other scale insects. On the flip side, we have the Epilachninae, a different species of Ladybugs, which are herbivores, known as crop pests and are selective feeders (turnip, broccoli, cabbage, maize, beans, cotton and much more).

Before releasing Ladybugs in your garden to fight the good fight for you, make sure you are releasing the predators and not the herbivores. Click here to learn to identify the different species of Ladybugs.

Are Ladybugs in your home? Learn how to get rid of them here and here.
Click here to learn about Releasing Ladybugs in The Garden.

Pages:

By JM Perez