I was beginning to worry that the insects weren’t going to find us. I remember feeling the same last year, but as our little garden has become even more isolated in the land of plastic and apathy, there seemed even more reason to be concerned. As a child, did you ever move house and wonder how Father Christmas would find you? All your precious pressies would inadvertently be given to some totally undeserving child and you would be left bereft and tearful on the fateful morning. That is what I have been thinking about the insects. All except the ants and the blackfly. Just like last year they have been doing very nicely. I even considered buying some ladybird larvae, but was swayed by thoughts of natural equilibrium and worried if the late comers turned up to find some interlopers they would be miffed.
Yesterday, on my tour of the grounds, I spotted two red admirals and one small tortoiseshell enjoying the scabious. Almost as exciting, if not more, was not one, not two, but three ladybirds. I fist pumped, à la Wimbledon, and rushed in to tell OH. Carried away with emotion, he nearly looked up from the paper and grunted, which I interpreted as “hip hip horray”.
Today I watched as one of these valiant ladybirds did battle with the fiendish ants protecting their prime milkers, cheering on the good guys and even intervening at one point. But wait. “Good guys?”, “fiendish?”, this is not a Saturday morning B movie. All these creatures have an equal right to fill their place in the complex and threatened world we live in, vilifying one and glorify another helps nothing or no-one. Any imbalance is due to human weakness. Fiendish, almost certainly.
Off The Edge Gardening 
I have been thrilled to see Red Admirals, Small tortoiseshell and Cabbage Whites this week as well as bees and wasps (I think they were wasps) and one teeney weeny ladybird 🐞. I rarely see ladybirds here.
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Brilliant, I hope they are all sheltering somewhere safe in this horrid weather.
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I am pleased to report an increased number of ladybirds in my garden this year. Last year I put up an insect hotel seeing only a few ladybirds. I have no idea that it helped, but if it did, then I am pleased. I had a butterfly fighting off bees in a ‘flower-off’ over an echinacea too.
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Isn’t it wonderful?! It means we are doing something right. 🙂
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Oh, my niece used to get a tub of ladybugs to release into the garden annually. I doubt that they did much there, but she enjoyed it so much.
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Definitely something I would consider doing in the future.
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I felt the same in this garden about birds too, there seemed to be only pigeons. Gradually though they are coming in. I never had much trouble with greenfly, before but now I have. Like you I get excited about seeing ladybirds and butterflies. It takes a while I think, turning barren lawn into something that birds and insects want to visit.
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Ants. They should not be allowed. There are TOO MANY in our garden.
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We felt pollinators were scarce this year and tomatoes were especially slow to set and seem unlikely to pick up from now on.
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Tomatoes definitely have very poor pollination this year, especially the ones in the greenhouse. There is always next year!
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