Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home
Today I am giving my last Wednesday morning talk for the year at Springmount Garden centre. Inevitably it is about preparing the garden for winter which will mean I have to skirt round pruning and tidying up the borders. I have already written that I like an autumn tidy up but it is worth leaving some stems around to make homes for beneficial insects and who doesn’t like ladybirds! I sometimes think it is odd the way we adore some creatures and dislike others. After all here is a beetle that eats its prey alive and advertises the fact that it is unpalatable to birds. But hey, we all love them.
Ladybird sheltering on dead echium leaf
Ladybirds nestling in an old aquilegia seed pod
A huddle of ladybirds under the sepals of a dead rose
Cheating here since this is spring and the ladybirds are doing what all ladybirds do when they wake up in a juniper bush after a long winter
Everyone knows what an adult ladybird looks like but the larvae, which actually do most of the aphid eradication, are less familiar. So to help you spot them, in summer, here is a ‘baby’ ladybird.
And here are some in the pupal stage, soon to hatch out as the red beetles.
The Biking Gardener 
I really love your ladybird photos especially the rose & aquilegia ones and so interesting to see the larval & pupal ones as I had no idea what they look like. Thank you.
Thank you and I am glad it was helpful
My thanks Geoff for a most interesting series of talks at Springmount & advice given. Never realised what ladybird larvae looked like. Looking forward to catching up with you again at next years talks. Rob
Hello Rob. Thank you for your comments and thanks for coming along! Not sure when the talks will start again but probably March so see you then if not before.
My niece used to get them to release into the garden. They were not much benefit to the garden, but she enjoyed believing that they were.