lady bird – The Gardening Blog

We have suffered through consistent wind for days now – this is the norm for this time of year in Cape Town – and I grow weary of it! I have no joy playing in the garden when the southeaster howls through the town. The wind has a nasty habit of bringing with it flies! I don’t know why! It seems to be a common thing here in Philly! It doesn’t make weather pattern sense – but thats what the townfolk say! The garden was looking parched, so I was out watering the garden this evening and I came across a few bugs and things. Look what the wind blew into my garden. Christine, you have some real beauties! Mine, I hope will match up to yours…

[one_half]My favourite little helper in the garden![/one_half]

[one_half_last]I don’t think that he is a good guy![/one_half_last]

[one_half]Look, I found a baby chameleon[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Oh look, another one! His brother?[/one_half_last]

[one_half]A little garden spider – another helper![/one_half]

[one_half_last]This one looks hungry! A moth or a butterfly?[/one_half_last]

I’m glad there is a good mix of welcome vs nasty!

Happy Gardening xxxx

Is it a Stinker or a Lady?

Today I found the most amazing thing … hundreds of these tiny beetle-like bugs just emerging from cocoons and waking up on one of the Nandina domestica shrubs. I was ambling around the garden late this afternoon after a hard days garden “clean up” and looking for blooms to capture for Bloom Day coming up next week, when my eye spotted these baby beetles through the camera.

Although they are visible to the naked eye (they are about 2mm round at the time I saw them), I only spotted them as I was focussing in on the white blossoms on the Nandina as the beetles are still very tiny. I watched one emerge from its cocoon and I took hundreds of photos of it – regrettably not one of them is publishable, so I didn’t manage to get it on film.

I’ve been to Bugguide.net and Whatsthatbug.com and I can’t make out what these are, but I am guessing they are either stink bug nymphs or lady beetles (hopeful!). I googled Stink Bug cocoon and stink bug chrysalis and it seems like Stink Bugs come from eggs, very green eggs. So I’m really not sure what these are. You can click on the photos to see the large versions.