Tell the Truth Tuesday (Late Edition): Ladybugs needed

I was pleased when two of my Hesperaloe parviflora produced bloom spikes this year.  They weren't nearly as floriferous as those I saw in Austin, Texas last year but I felt my small collection of plants was headed in the right direction.

I took this photo of the Hesperaloe blooms in late June

The flowers still looked fine when I took photos for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day in mid-July

Then this week I noticed that the smaller bloom spike didn't look right.

I took this photo yesterday.  Notice the bloom spike on the left.

From a distance, the flower spike on this plant seemed to have turned gray

But it was actually covered in tiny green sap-sucking beasties

Within little more than a week, when I wasn't looking, the aphids covered the entire flower spike.  It seems that the warmer weather brought them out.  I dealt with smaller infestations on the Gaura in my front garden in early spring but it was nothing like this.  I cut the entire spike and deposited it in the trash, then doused the Hesperaloes with insecticidal soap.  At present, the flower spikes on the adjacent plant don't appear to have any bugs at all.

After I'd cleaned up the aphid problem (at least for the moment), I noticed a nearby bed was in need of grooming.  It too had looked great in June.

Succulents comfortably mingled with purple-flowered Limonium perezii (aka sea lavender) here

As the Limonium started to fade I cut out the flower stems that no longer looked good.  One thing led to another and, after pulling some of rattier Limoniums, I cut back an overly exuberant trailing Osteospermum, rampant stems of asparagus fern (an inherited weed here), and some sickly pale stems of Senecio vitalis, revealing other plants I'd entirely forgotten about.

My clean-up is by no means complete but my knee can only handle so much time working on even a moderate slope like this one

I planted this Aloe striata x maculata early last year, along with Aeonium cuttings, then lost track of it entirely when it was engulfed by the Limonium.  There's another variegated succulent  just beyond it I haven't even identified yet. 

More clean-up - and perhaps a new planting vision - is needed to whip this area into shape, but that's a project for a cooler day.  The heat seems to have caught up with us at last.

Tell the Truth Tuesday is hosted on a periodic basis by Alison at Bonnie Lassie to keep things real by showing the less-than-Instagram-perfect features of our gardens.   Is your garden harboring any nasty bugs or hiding any lost treasures?  Do tell.


All material © 2012-2019 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Sap Suckers and Plant Chompers

Spring decorates the garden with beautiful blooms and adds an auditory accompaniment of birdsong.    On a less pleasant note, it also marks the return of some ugly garden visitors: sap-sucking and plant-chomping bugs.  The aphids showed up first, following what was probably the last rain of our short wet season.  I wasn't paying sufficient attention to the garden at that point and they infested the buds of my climbing rose before I realized they'd arrived.  A good hosing wasn't enough to take care of the problem and I had to resort to cutting back the worst of the damage and giving the shrub a dousing of insecticidal soap.

Too many aphids, too few ladybugs

The grasshoppers showed up next.  I don't recall seeing them this early in the season before.  I found evidence that something was munching my new Stevia plant before I noticed the culprit himself.

Chomped up Stevia plant

Grasshopper meditating on his next meal

The bugs shown in the pictures above are stand-ins for the ones I found in my garden.  My brother, a much better photographer than I'll ever be, provided the photos.  He also provided the picture below, constructed with the assistance of software using other pictures he'd taken, in an effort to reconstruct an epic battle he says he witnessed between a swallow and a grasshopper.

How I wish I could train the birds in my yard to hunt grasshoppers!  That's not to say that the birds in my garden don't earn the seed I provide for them.  They spend a lot of time poking around in the garden beds and lawn.

Fuzzy picture (taken through window glass) of a sparrow on the hunt

However, some birds spend more time primping than hunting.

Fluffed up after his first dip

Drying out after his 2nd dip

Other than the bees, I've yet to see many good bugs in my garden.

Carpenter bee in flight

The ladybug pictured at the top of this post was found in a garden my brother visited some 50 miles from me.  I haven't seen any butterflies yet either, although my brother has.

Monarch butterfly in waiting

Gulf Fritillary (male)

Gulf Fritillary (female)

All insect pictures were provided courtesy of ericnp.net.