Search - Articles

, as there were two or three ladybird couples mating on the plants, I chose to let nature take its course and let the blackfly be (ladybird larvae have a voracious appetite for aphids). This week I popped down and found so many ladybirds that I worried there weren

to me because it’s beautiful and I’d never seen one before. It’s not particularly rare and it doesn’t even eat aphids – sorry gardeners. But it’s recently adapted its habitat and is becoming more widespread. At 4.5-6mm long it’s roughly the same size

This Saturday (30 October) is RSPB Feed the Birds Day. To celebrate, I gave my feeders a good wash with hot water and disinfectant and bought some expensive bird seed. The birds, still busy eating aphids from the trees in the local park, are none

hoverfly). Both of these are supposed to resemble the common wasp to deter predators, and are completely harmless. They lay their eggs on plants and their larvae eat aphids.Having abandoned hopes of growing the world's tallest sunflower, I'm now content

of aphids in the United States and Europe. It was free to breed and spread over the continents and eventually all it needed to do was hop over the Channel to the UK. So it did.First spotted in Essex, the harlequin is now virtually everywhere, except for more

, Myathropa florea, laying eggs inside the bin. Another one was buzzing about on Sunday, trying to find a way to the waste inside. The larvae of many hoverfly species eat aphids, but not these. The ‘rat tailed maggots’ are happier living in decaying matter