Ladybugs / ladybirds - where can I get some?

Short of going out into the park and hunting them myself, anyone know where I can get some live ladybugs, or ladybirds if you prefer? My plants are all suffering from aphid attacks and as they are things I want to eat, I don't really want to spray them too much.

Not a strange question. I knew why you were asking before I read the post. I don't have an answer but could do with one myself.

If you can't get die Bugs. This is an alternative:

Get a handsprayer, mix a little (5-10%) washing up liquid with clean water.
My wife does this for her roses. It kills the little green buggers, but doesn't harm the plant.
It is not too bad for the environment, because you only use a little detergent.

Very interesting question. I will have a hunt around but I know my Father orders natural pest killing methods from somewhere and there must be a German equivalent.

You basically order preditors and in a few weeks a variety of packages arrive with live bugs (OK, maybe not ladybirds) which you then simply let loose on the parisites.

I will have a lookie and get back to you if I find anything.

Hiya
Plant some angelica or dill or by let weeds such as dandelions grow nearby as ladybirds love them.
I've heard that a mix of milk and beer (honest) sprayed onto plants can also attract ladybirds (was talking to Herr Indoors' mum about greenfly the other week, she's big on gardening) but I have not seen this done so maybe a couple of pots of dill from the supermarket for your windowbox might do the trick instead.
You can build ladybird "nests" for them for over the winter but that won't help you this year.
Good luck,
Katrina

@showem,

Great question. I too am having some serious aphid problems. There are some other insects that kill off aphids, but I CANNOT find any info on them. Saw them on an English telly programme; they do not kill aphids, but inject their eggs insode them (amazing to watch, they chase the aphid, then hit them with their tail, scorpion style, and inject an egg). The egg then hatches, killing the aphid like a scene from Aliens. Coooooool. Think they are more suited to greenhouses/polytunnels though.

Anyway, ladybugs. I personally waiting for a hot day, building a collecting box, and taking my niece out into some fields to do it manually. Not something I see us being very succesful with

Washing down the leaves and stems by hand (I know, long job) with some VERY weak soapy water helps, and a spray of rapeseed oil with water afterwards prevents them coming back (a little) apparently. I washed the aphids off of some chilli plants, and it helped alot.

Yes I've heard that nasturtiums help to attract aphids away from more critical plants but that doesn't seem to be helping this year.

I used the washing-up liquid attack a couple of years ago and my roses took two years to recover!

There seems to be an aphid invasion in munich this year. The lettuce in my garden is under heavy attack this year, also the roses, and (oddly) the sunflower plants. I read that you should plant basil and "citronelle" as a natural deterrent. I tried that and it didn't work. I also tried the dish detergent spray thing, and seems to have scared them off the lettuce, but the other plants are still suffering.
[img]http://entm29.entm.purdue.edu/acorn/entmpics/aphid.jpg[/img]

aphids hate soap as metnioned in one of the previous posts.

I use peppermint essential oil in a spray bottle to protect house plants (about 20 drops of oil for a half litre bottle of water) It makes the buggers angry "who put mint flavored tooth paste on the plants?" that will not work on the edible stuff though, hum rosemary taste minty.

If you do find a place for ladybugs (Marienkäffer) Set them free up wind. they travel about 100 yards once let them loose depending on wind conditions. I had neighbors in Houston that bought lady bugs every year for their garden, the girls would fly about a block and come through the cracks around the windows of my old building. I had the happiest house plants in the Montrose.

http://www.ghorganics.com/LadyBugLures.html

Take a look at this website. It is from the US but there must be a website that offers such stuff here.

The only problem is that I can imagine it is the same sort of concept as a lot of those inventions you see on the home shopping channels, i.e. a fantastic invention that does not work at all and probably attracts more of those aphid sods, but I will keep looking.

Wow, a bunch of keen gardeners we have here! I've tried the soapy water and just plain forced water, but it didn't work to any degree of great success. My boyfriend came how while I was rinsing off the mint and said "Why are you washing the plants?"
As for basil keeping them away, the basil has aphids too, so I don't think that's the answer.
All my plants are indoors except the strawberries. Do you think it would be cruel to keep ladybugs indoors? Can they be domesticated?

@ showem,

Lady bugs do fine indoors. Less likely to be carted off by the breeze. Flea Circus, Ladybug Indoor Brunch I can see the similarities.

Happy Gardening!

Amazon is selling them for $19.95 plus shipping.

[img]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001KWFGG.01-AT39QKIE0XGB7.MZZZZZZZ.jpg[/img]

Product Description These beneficial ladybugs are the most popular and widely used beneficial insects for commercial and home use for pest control. Ladybugs are capable of consuming up to 50 to 60 aphids per day, but they will also eat a variety of other insects and larvae including: scales, mealy bugs, leaf hoppers, mites, and various types of soft bodied insects.

I seriously doubt that they would ship bugs internationally though. Perhaps the soap and water route?

i've planted laender beteween my roses as it reduces the amount on the plants, there is also a herb which i grow (wehrmüt? bit dodgy on it can better mail the name tomorrow), and you can make the leaves into a tea which is then applied as a wonderful aphid repellent. as i have kids i always try to be organic iin my pest control sollutions, and failing that buy plants which repel or are not atractive to aphis/slugs etc... (my slugs wont eat red lettuice!!!)

Cool! Maybe I can stop my woman stealing my beer and putting little mugs of it about the bloody garden!

Hmm, Profundo's idea of Amazon was a good lead. Unfortunately amazon.de has something similar, but it's not available at the moment. That led me to think of the next idea though. German eBay has 100 ladybug eggs to sell, but I haven't worked through all the German fine print to figure out the details.

nuts to ladybirds. Get praying mantises (mantii?) instead:

Ah, Insects!

You would need to know how to hatch the eggs I suppose. It would take a few days but it might be worth it.
The proper care and feeding of Ladybug larvae. Q&A about ladybugs.

Including:
Q. How did the ladybug get its name?
A. In Europe, during the Middle Ages, insects were destroying the crops, so the Catholic farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. Soon the Ladybugs came, ate the plant-destroying pests and saved the crops! The farmers began calling the ladybugs "The Beetles of Our Lady", and they eventually became known as "Lady Beetles"! The red wings represented the Virgin's cloak and the black spots represented her joys and sorrows. They didn't differentiate between males and females.

ok this is going to sound strange, but if you take cigarette butts, boil them and take the "juice" from that spray it on that should do the trick. don't know how tasty it would be to eat that though

Well there are over 400 deadly chemicals in cigaretes, so at least one of them is bound to kill little insects; they do enough damage to humans. However I would consider to this to be at the more chemical end of the natural-chemical spectrum. I wouldnt reccomend this to the original poster who was looking for more eco-friendly solutions.

The original poster. Hmph. I have a name you know.

But Kza's right, eew, cigarette butts. I'd rather handle ladybug eggs and larva.

Are we talking about black aphids which cluster around the tips of leaf tips?

If so I have loads of them and got covered with them last night cutting the hedge.

Geoff Hamilton's Gardener's World book says you simply snip the tips off and dump them in the bin. But if there is a better Lösung I would like to know.

In the past it's been greenfly that have been causing more problems, but this year there seems to be a plague of the black aphids.
So far this summer I've just been doing exactly that, snipping off the infected areas and flushing them down the toilet. It does seem to be keeping them in check so far.

Mine are green aphids.

Just an update for all of you. I phone several pet shops and none of them had ladybugs. Many sounded boggled that I was even asking. However, I did have more luck with gardening shops. Two of them could order them for me, but I wasn't so happy about the price; 19.99 for 100 eggs at one, 13.99 for about 80 bugs at the other. And one of the was "Australian ladybugs" that only eat "Wollläuse", not Blattläuse. So, instead I decided to go the cheaper route with the guy selling the eggs on eBay (see here). I bought for 1.99, 4.99 including shipping, sent him an email yesterday saying I had paid and I already have the eggs today. Let's see what happens once they hatch...

Perhaps it's not the chemicals in the butts, but the actual tobacky. What if one were to boil up a batch of "tobacco tea" just using natural tobacco leaves and spritz that on the plants? Perhaps not on one's own plants, but on the plants of an unsuspecting enemy...then, if it's successful, you may endear yourself to the rival...and if it's not, nothing's lost.

On the naming thing - I always thought they were called Ladybirds and the Ladybugs was an Americanism...am I wrong? Always called Ladybirds in Ireland I think.

Then I followed Brummie's link to buy Praying Mantii Larvii for garden purposes and found this in the customer reviews:

WTF???

Then I read the next review which was


Canned mantids???

@showem
Perhaps you can learn the deadly secrets of the ladybug and become a deadly weapon - I don't think the kung fu folk got around to that yet. Failing that you could stew them I suppose!!!

getting back to the aphids/greenflies:
common method here is not spraying the plants with detergent mixed with water, but putting a coule of sticks over a bucket of soapy water, turning the plant upside down and submerging it in the water for at least half an hour.
If you wanna eat the plant then you can rinse it off afterwards. By then the pest will be dead.
Personally I think that greenflies (and their black cousins) are about as disgusting as it gets. I don't mind mice, spiders, snakes... but these sticky little things that will get anywhere when you're cycling along or even walking, in your eyes, mouth, ... They make my skin itch. I hate them! This year is particularly bad. next most disgusting thing is fruit flies. Yuck!