We discovered what we thought were aphids in our garden, But after some research the appear to be spider mites. They had multiplied pretty fast and had covered all of the stems and leaves.
The mites are pretty damaging as the seem to suck life right out of my False Sunflower plants. The are tiny and red and covered numerous stems of the plant. So we decided to order 1500 Ladybugs from Amazon.com. They came in about 2 days from a farm in Ohio and were shipped in a perforated plastic container with wood chips and protein.
Per the instructions, we released them in the evening on a water garden. They are less likely to fly in the evening and the water is for their thirst. We did as instructed and let them lose.
We sprinkled them just on the False Sunflower since this is the only plant that has the spider mites. We stood there and watched our 1500 new neighbors begin to accumulate to their new home. I mean 1499, 1498, 1497 as a few flew away probably looking for not so crowded homes. But many of them have stayed and hopefully will enjoy the spider mites and other bugs this summer.
We released them on Thursday last week and they are still in the garden as of this past weekend. They have spread to other parts of the garden but seem to like the False Sunflower the best.
For now we will keep an eye on our 1497 or less friends and see if they start reproducing and maybe we will have 1500 more LadyBugs.
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