Sleepy Hollow

Thanks Hb, there are so many hidden all over the garden, they really are tough little cookies....:o)

Hywel will be so jealous ... he hasn't seen a real Ladybird for years ... lol! : o )

I love it - fab picture - this one a add to favourite I think :)

great pic janey i must go look tomoz :o)

Wow Janey just look at that lot.........lol

Amazing survivors!

Whoa! Lucky you!

Great photo Janey, I've been noticing odd ones but a whole cluster is amazing. Tough little guys, so good to see they've survived winter.

wonderful little helpers very nice photo thankyou

Thanks everyone! They do seem to be all over....even on the veggie wheelie bin, when I lift the lid there they are on the ledge! Should be okay on the greenfly front this year...:o))

thats lovely. norfolk had a plague of them a couple of years ago i think
i have one that seems to have spent the winter in the kitchen ~ i think!

Lovely to see Janey , Yes Sticki we did have a plague in Norfolk millions of them.. people were walking on them they were so thick on the ground ..

Nature's Modern art. It is lovely.Speaks volumes about secrets of creation

Ladybird convention.....after the long sleep....They are the native ones by the looks of the black legs. The others have orange legs.

Snap Janey, I lifted our wheelie bin lid the other day to put in garden stuff and found three ladybirds tucked in the corner, I removed them and popped them in a corner so that they stay in my garden!!!! I love your pic.

are you breeding them lol !!!! must admit have seen a few in garden ................. but not like that . x

Cristina, its a good idea to leave in corners up against fences, pieces of tree bark, then the ladybirds can gather in safety for the winter. x

I wonder if yours in Norfolk Sticki and Amy were the foreign ones flying in from Asia? They have a type of M marking where the wings join and are predators of our native ones, they're more orangy too and have lots more spots than ours.

Thanks Arwadoo, they certainly can cope with very low temps, go into hibernation mode I suspect, think we may have to adopt that if our winters stay the same....:o((

Luckily Linda, so far we haven't seen any foreign one's in the garden, which is good news for these little beasties....:o)

They do know where the best places are Grandmage....the wheelie bin warms up with all the garden and kitchen waste, like the compost heap...

It does look like it Cristina, well I do hope so!...:o)

Yes it's a good idea Grandmage, there was a smashing Ladybird house on here last week, I forgot whose it was, but a large log or a few smaller ones will do just as well. When we came here there were some large logs and tree branches positioned round the garden, which we left for the insects. The other thing we have lots of are snails which live on the walls behind the creepers all winter. I used to put pellets out for them as there were so many, but they never came to ground, just slid along the walls...Lol!

Lovely to see, Janey. I had batches like this on my camelia last year but no sign of them at the moment.

I haven't seen any huddled together like these but I did see loads of them amongst the leaf litter while I was cleaning out the Raspberry plot on the allotment just yesterday!

How great will eat all the baddies lurking in the garden......

Janey think it was on Paulsgarden, I told him that it would attract mason bees, which I have a colony of.

Thats good to know that these gardener's friends are managing to thrive against all the odds isn't it?
That's right Grandmage, Pauls pic of the Ladybird house.
Do the bees burrow into your brickwork....I remember at our first house, there were bees flying in and out of the old brickwork, they made holes in the pointing....are you sure you want them in your garden????

Yes defo. they are sweet creatures & docile at that, I buy ready made tubes for them to nest in and overwinter them in readiness for the warmth of April/May time when they emerge and start over again, they are very different to the ones that burrow into the masonry, although we have those as well, without them life would be devastating because they are amazing pollinators of our fruit trees & plants.

They are Grandmage, and they've suffered such a lot this last few years, we have to do all we can to provide a healthy environment for them. It was just the Masonry Bees I was bothered about. When we lived in Spain, the hill village near us was called the Honey village. There were hives everywhere and it was famous for it's 'Miel'
all different types of honey they made....:o)

Sounds idillyic 'honey on tap' ! Sadly we get no honey just lovely pollinated fruit trees & flowers, cant have it all, that is why I have mason bee boxes to try to do my bit!

Glad they survived, they will help keep the aphids down in the summer.

Great photograph Janey. I have never seen this many together.

what a accumulation of ladybugs you have hit the jackpot there, lovely photo.

Non at all this summer though Marybells!

:-( have you discovered why?

No no idea, must have been lack of food for them?

if you had a lot of ants they would certainty keep numbers down ive learnt and discovered it to be so in my case.
hope they return another time :-)