Juli Lawrence – Rakish Gardening

September 3rd, 2008

Wow! A few days ago I found the most unusual eggs on my butterfly weed. Little tiny white eggs, hanging from little hair-like threads. They were in perfect alignment, in rows, as if a little perfect army of warriors, waiting to hatch.

My digital camera doesn’t take great pictures of tiny things like that, so I use my good equipment. But that’s film, which means I have to get it developed. I did get some pictures of the eggs, though and will post when I do. They’re cool. I had to google to find out what on earth they were.

Oddly enough, the first year I went organic I bought lacewing eggs from Planet Natural. I didn’t know what I was doing, so they weren’t really appropriate for my problem of cucumber beetles and leafhoppers. But I followed the instructions, let them hatch into tiny little larvae, then pranced around and sprinkled my “fairy dust.” It was crazy good fun.

So I was quite excited to learn I’ve got lacewing eggs on a leaf. They’re so hard to see, and that plant is so ginormous, I’m certain there must be more. Now the eggs are turning a light blue, and I check every day to see if they’ve hatched. I hope to see it.

The butterfly weed attracts oleander aphids. The aphids don’t bother other plants, and even with a huge infestation, they don’t seem to do any damage on the butterfly weed. Last year, I found the aphids and thought they were monarch eggs. LOL. A friend had some too, and we got excited together. Then she said “Are eggs supposed to have tiny legs?”

I squealed and said “Ohhh! They must be hatching! The legs belong to baby caterpillars.”

Now I know better. Earlier this season I did work at squooshing them while wearing a glove. It was nasty and that glove is worse. But the ladybugs just loved them, so I decided to let them be. I wanted to make sure the ladybugs I had worked so hard to attract (Queen Anne’s Lace and hairy vetch) would have food.

That was great fun, but then a big rain came and washed them all away. So the eensy weensy spider…oops. The ladybugs left and I hadn’t seen any for a few weeks. But the aphids returned and I just let them grow into what would be a huge infestation for anyone else. To me, they were just part of the fascinating little ecosystem I’ve got going on that plant. And sure enough, the ladybugs returned.

Yesterday the plant looked like this times about 100. Just covered in aphids.

All of the yellow/orange dots and clusters are oleander aphids.

Today, the entire plant has been CLEANED of aphids. The aphid lions (lacewings) have done their job. I saw two lacewing larvae (again, pictures later) marching around in search of food. One was little, the other kind of large. If you didn’t know what they were, they might be scary. I know there had to be more, but I’m blown away that some lacewing larvae could clean up that huge plant in one day. No wonder they’re called the aphid lion. So obviously there were eggs somewhere else and they’d hatched.

I swear this plant is a science class in itself. If I had kids, I’d have them out at that plant every day learning about nature. I actually do bring my neighbor’s little granddaughters over now and then and we study the monarch caterpillars and talk about how they become butterflies.

It’s been so fascinating.

• More Japanese Beetles
• Japanese beetle frenzy!
• Garden update: squirrels, aphids and cucumbers
• Aphids at the nursery!
• Ladybug eating the oleander aphids

Tags: aphids, beneficial insects
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