The Shrewd Gardener

For Clever Gardeners Everywhere

Do you really know what’s going on in your garden?

Posted on | May 23, 2010 | No Comments

Today is beautifully sunny and bright. Ideal for pottering around the garden.

Ladybird (Ladybug)

I noticed yesterday that there are quite a few ladybirds (ladybugs, US) on the willow tunnel we built last year. They seem to be quite happy and I think they are going around eating the marauding insects that attack willows at this time of year. Good thing too!

We have a small birch tree growing in a pot in a sunny spot near the patio. Not exactly natural as Birches are really woodland trees which like to cluster together, typically producing a light dappled shade.

This little tree is only about three feet (1m) tall and it has a few problems, not least living in a pot. There is an ants nest at the base and it is covered in Aphids. There are hundreds of the blighters!

Aha! I hear you cry. The ants are farming the aphids.

Ladybird snacking on an Aphid.

Yes they are and they have been having a great time recently as the weather has been warming up. So I decided to do an experiment and move about half-a-dozen of the Ladybirds to the Birch tree and see what happened.

Well, the results were pretty well immediate and the ladybirds are now going around munching the annoying aphids.

The ants seem to be a little bit more frantic so it’ll be very interesting to go back in a while and see if they have evicted the ladybirds from their territory.


But there’s more!

While watching the ladybirds and the ants and the aphids the tree was visited by a few other insects. Flies including Hover flies and the marvellous Ichneumon Wasp.

Ichneumon Wasp - watch out if you're a caterpillar.

The Ichneumon Wasp is amazing. The long ‘tail’ is actually an ovipositor and is used to inject the wasp’s eggs into the body of caterpillars and grubs.

The wasp grubs then hatch inside the host body and proceed to eat it from the inside out. Very nasty and very clever. Just think, it saves a whole lot of effort on the mother wasp’s part as she does not have to look after the eggs in any way.

There must be some risk if the grub or caterpillar is eaten by a bird or other creature but as a survival strategy it isn’t a bad one.

Spend some time in your garden just observing… what can you see that you might have missed?

Bookmark and Share
Category: Ecology, Fun, Garden Skills, Gardening For Children, knowledge, wildlife
Tags: > > > > > > > > > >

Comments

Leave a Reply





  • About

    This is where I blog about my interest in gardening and ecology. There is always something to do in the garden all year round and as we have an inner city garden the tasks are a little different to rural spaces.

    I work as a software developer now but a few years ago I had my own gardening design and construction business.

  • History

  • RSS What to do this week – The Guardian

  • Site Admin