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was there to encourage people to take part in its ladybird surveys and help map the spread of the harlequin ladybird over the UK.The harlequin first came over to the UK in 2003. It was an inevitable invasion: a native of Asia, it was being used for biological control

.Every year at Gardeners’ World Live I see the ladybird poppy (Papaver commutatum), and wish I had it. I never see it at any flower shows or public gardens, or even growing in people’s own gardens – but there it is, without fail flowering its socks off

, 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

ready for the council to come and collect. On some of the leaves were ladybird pupae, while spiders spun new webs in the wreckage. There may also have been chrysalises of the holly blue butterfly, whose caterpillars feed on ivy in summer. They

to make the bee hotel, without bamboo, sunflower and teasel stems. I think the combination of branches, twigs and chopped trunk will make a varied insect habitat – one which I hope will be used by leafcutter bees to breed in as well as providing ladybirds