Kitchen Garden Forum

Somebody in the village is sure that they have found a harlequin ladybird in the moss on top of a bowl of hyacinths, bought from M&S as a Christmas present! Presumably the plant was grown in a greenhouse somewhere, perhaps in Holland. He is watching it carefully and will report it to the Harlequin Survey. If it did get out of the house, presumably it couldn't survive outside in the cold weather at the moment, or would it?
Are they really as destructive as feared?

Does this help? http://www.harlequin-survey.org

They reached South Yorkshire last summer, but I haven't seen any in the garden so far, although there weren't many ladybirds at all last year were there?

The first time I saw the Harlequins was two years ago when we went to the Chelsea Physic Garden and there were hundreds of them and hardly any natives. I think we saw two seven spot ones among all the Harlequins. They don't seem to attack the native ones (the ones we were watching didn't anyway), but they are so much larger and seem so prolific that I should think they could eat all the aphids etc and starve ours out of existence.

I asked at the Physic garden if they were doing anything to try and keep the numbers down, but they said they weren't doing anything except monitoring them.

Hi Plumpudding,
I believe that all the attacking is done to the British Ladybird Larvae and not to the adult Ladybird.
They reached here last summer and any that I have seen I have destroyed. Have quite a healthy population of British Ladybirds on site.
JB.

Hi Johnboy,

It will be interesting to see the outcome of all the reporting and monitoring. As they are quite large, I suppose they could eat larvae of most things if they had got through all the aphids.

I'm going to have a look if there is any info on this, whether they stick mainly to aphids, or aren't choosy.

Pat

We live in kent and last winter we had loads in the house congregating in the bay windows and behind curtains- hoovered these up. This year we have had hundreds again within the house apparently they leave a scent marker for others to follow in- as we had new windows fitted it has been mainly our bedroom as we leave the window open slightly and in they come and hide up behind the net curtains, curtains any dark space even if you leave a box on the floor (like my christmas pressie before wrapping) when you open the box loads of these ladybirds are in it and this was only for one week before christmas.

The worst part if you squish them accidently or other wise they stink.

Most this time of year I just sweep up and chuck them out the window- with the numbers around there will be plenty left for springtime.

Well with harlequin ladybirds, ghost slugs, white fly, leek moth, and all the other pests we encounter it's a good job we are a resilient bunch. Keep smiling all we will win.

Thanks for all your comments - I am still waiting for confirmation of the sighting. But from your comments I see that they are numerous in other parts of the country. We hardly saw any common ladybirds or their larvae last year (when we usually have lots). I put that down to the wet weather, but now I wonder whether their larger cousins had already arrived. I will certainly look out for them when the weather warms up!