ladybirds for a balcony garden?

Nanazolie

Hi

I have a large-ish balcony on which I grow some flowers and edible plants. The rose plants, the fushias and the strawberry plants get infested every year with greenflies. I spray them with a garlic infusion, but they always come back and with the rain I don't know whether the infusion is working at all. Would ladybirds stay on a balcony? I have about 15 pots, including a dwarf apple tree, and will be expanding this to about 25 pots in the summer. Would that be enough to entice them to stay?

Thanks

prospect

Add a drop or two of washing up liquid to your spray, that should sort you out.

Day Lewin

I've had ladybirds on indoor plants. I keep trying to make them go out, and then I find them on the curtains, or something...
I don't know if they actually eat many greenflies. but they are lovely in themselves anyway, and they sure don't seem to need much maintenance.

looksee

There seem to have been masses of ladybirds this year, but since they can fly your chances of keeping them or losing them seem to be about equal!

Oldtree

prospect wrote: »

Add a drop or two of washing up liquid to your spray, that should sort you out.

As insects breathe through the skin so to speak this will kill beneficial insects too.

Oldtree

Nanazolie wrote: »

Hi

I have a large-ish balcony on which I grow some flowers and edible plants. The rose plants, the fushias and the strawberry plants get infested every year with greenflies. I spray them with a garlic infusion, but they always come back and with the rain I don't know whether the infusion is working at all. Would ladybirds stay on a balcony? I have about 15 pots, including a dwarf apple tree, and will be expanding this to about 25 pots in the summer. Would that be enough to entice them to stay?

Thanks

In such a small area they may only pass through if they have a food source, like aphids.

redser7

Oldtree wrote: »

As insects breathe through the skin so to speak this will kill beneficial insects too.

That's the crux of the matter. If you want to go organic you have to go 100% and trust that a balance will win out and allow you to have healthy plants and a crop. So you would grow plants that would attract beneficial insects like hover flies and butterflies that will feed on the nasties like greenfly. There's no doubt that it works if you are willing to be patient and build your ecosystem over a number years. Unfortunately scale is a factor from what I've experienced. An urban gardener will get wiped out quickly by pests no matter how much effort they put into organic practices. Whereas someone with a decent bit of land can create the right conditions.
So while I aspire to be organic I find a moment will always come where I have to make a choice to lose the whole season or selectively and carefully use a non-organic method to control pests or diseases. So seeing as you are growing on a balcony and greenfly are getting the upper hand, either zap them or give up entirely.

redser7

The third way of course is exhaustive persistence. You could spray the greenfly away with jets of water. But they will return. So you have to keep at it. Life is probably too short if you get hit bad.

Oldtree

redser7 wrote: »

The third way of course is exhaustive persistence. You could spray the greenfly away with jets of water. But they will return. So you have to keep at it. Life is probably too short if you get hit bad.

Or squish the little blighters, like I do on my roses out front, more a formal little garden with little habitat for ladybirds, unlike out back that is more a wild garden with loads of places for them to live and eat and breed, they cluster under the leaves and near the stalk or on fresh growth, so easy to squish with out damaging the leaf. They can very quickly leave a residue on the leaves that seems to promote a sooty mould and damages the leaves.