The Exton Gardener

The garden of our first home together after we married was dominated by a large clingstone peach tree.

In spring the new growth suddenly became puckered and distorted. Ahh, they told us - curly leaf disease. You have to spray in winter to prevent this.

Closer inspection though revealed a different cause - aphids! All the new growth was crawling with them.

Then came the ladybirds. Within weeks the tree was producing normal healthy leaves. Although I’ve gardened most of my life I have no formal horticultural training.

I’ve learnt through experience, observation and reading. I prefer not to use that American name “ladybug.” Ladybirds are not bugs.

“Bug” is not the generic word for “insect.” Ladybirds are beetles, not bugs. Bugs are sap suckers. Aphids are bugs, as are stink bugs and harlequins.

Ladybird beetles and lacewings feed on aphids and they and their larvae are efficient predators.

Most of us are familiar with the greenfly aphids that appear on new rose shoots every year.

Other forms of aphid are the black aphids that distort the growing tips of ornamental cherries and the brown/grey ones on the stems of milk thistles.

Then there’s the woolly aphid that is a pest on my Fuji apple trees. I can usually find the ladybirds are there as well.

There is, however, one ladybird in my garden that doesn’t appear on aphid patrol.

I am finding them in large numbers on my grape vines.

As my garden has matured it has created too much shelter around the vines and they’ve become prone to mildew. I have sprayed in the past to no avail.

The yellow ladybirds graze on mildew.

Their numbers have increased so I leave them to it.

It’s really important to recognise the larva of ladybirds as they have a large appetite! They are quite a unique triangular shape with six legs at the front, brown/grey to black in colour and with coloured stripes according to the colour of the adult.

They don’t resemble the adult at all.

I treasure my ladybirds and encourage them. I only wish I had more!