Save the ladybugs!

A couple of summers ago my Heliopsises were overrun with a healthy colony of creepy blood-red alien-like insects all up and down their stalks. I freaked. I jet streamed water from my hose until they were washed away only to see them crawling all over each other later in the day.

Last year, I found out these creepy crawlers were called aphids. Aphids!!!!!!! Oh no! Even I knew this was bad -- very, very bad. So I sprayed the hell out of my plants, an option I wasn't comfortable with.

I knew from research last year that ladybugs feed on these hairy long-legged freaks of nature. I really wanted to control this problem via natural methods -- so the other night I hopped online to purchase some ladybugs. What was I thinking? Oh, I don't know. Some friendly gardening company that raised the little darlings outdoors in splashes of sunshine and healthy greenery gently shaking the ladybugs from flower stalks as orders came in. (I know you're thinking: Laurie you are sooo naive).

I did not expect to uncover the dark underbelly of a slavery network.

Now when I mentioned this to John (aka, The Voice of Reason) last year, I could see a look of concern/disapproval/fear cross his face. "I don't know about this. I don't like it," the sense of warning strong in his voice. "

John expressed that he felt bringing in ladybugs would somehow transform the natural balance of the current garden into a natural disaster akin to global warming. "I don't like it," the distress in his voice growing.

As usual, I did what I thought best. Imagine my horror when opening my first site of ladybug peddlers.

Apparently when these little guys are hanging out in their off-season waiting out the winter all fat and happy and loopy from their hibernative state, these insect-flesh peddlars scoop them up by the thousands, ship them off to a series of hungry retailers or imprison them in refrigerators to break their barely begun hibernation. . . until an order needs to be filled. If they aren't forced out of hibernation, they won't lay eggs when released -- a guarantee by most ladybug peddlars.

Some retailers boast of screening their ladybugs for parasites (I can only imagine that horror) and promise a fertile crop of prodigy. They even have the audacity to offer ladybug-related toys, puzzles and party favors to boot!

As much as I didn't want to heed The Voice of Reason I learned from Learn 2Grow that he was (once again) right:

The short point here is that purchasing wild-harvested ladybugs, which almost certainly what you will find at retail outlets, will not do much good for your garden, and it may introduce non-native species into your local ecosystem. Additionally, purchasing these ladybugs may contribute to the decimation of the wild ladybug populations. This is an unfortunate situation because some collectors are taking advantage of an opportunity to literally pick money (the ladybugs) from the landscape, and they don’t see the longer term consequences. "

After reading about this predatory industry, I've changed my thinking. I can deal with the aphids -- they're doing what comes natural. But I can't deal with the slavery ring known as ladybug peddling.

©L'uragana